THOMAS   JEFFERSON 
Third  President  of  the  Unjtecl  States 


Clje 

^Louisiana  llurcJwse 

AS  IT  WAS,  AND  AS  IT  IS 


BY 

A.   E.  WINSHIP 

AND 

ROBERT  W.  WALLACE,  A.M. 


*£-C 


A.     FLANAGAN    COMPANY 
CHICAGO  NEW  YORK 


e'i3- 


COPYRIGHT,  1903 

BY 

A.  FLANAGAN  COMPANY 


TYPOGRAPHY  BY 

MAUSH,   AITKEN  &  CURTIS  COMPANY 

CHICAGO 


TO   ALL 

WHO    BY    THEIR    INDUSTRY,    THRIFT,    AND 

INTEGRITY    HAVE    CONTRIBUTED 

TO    THE 

MARVELOUS    DEVELOPMENT 

OF 

THE  LOUISIANA  PURCHASE 

THIS    VOLUME 

IS 

RESPECTFULLY   DEDICATED 


238826 


CONTENTS 


PART  I 

CHAPTER 

I.  The  Early  Owners  of  Louisiana 

II.  Under  the  Spanish  Flag    . 

III.  Louisiana  in  Poetry    . 

IV.  Fear  of  the  French  Occupation 
V.  President  Jefferson's  Anxiety  . 

VI.  Napoleon  in  Straits    .... 

VII.  A  Message  from  Napoleon's  Bathtub 

VIII.  The  Price  of  the  Territory 

IX.  Spain's  Opposition  to  the  Purchase. 

X.  President  Jefferson's  Quandary 

XI.  Senatorial  Objections  and  Fears 

XII.  Louisiana  Knocks  for  Admission 

XIII.  Louisiana  Increases  Her  Population 

XIV.  Aaron  Burr  and  Louisiana 

XV.  Josiah  Quincy's  Threats  of  Secession 

XVI.  The  Battle  of  New  Orleans    . 


PAGE 

7 

12 

17 
21 

24 
28 
32 
36 
41 
44 
48 

53 
57 
61 

65 
7o 


PART  II 

XVII. 

Some  Statistics  of  the  Purchase 

.       77 

XVIII. 

Louisiana 

.       80 

XIX. 

Missouri 

.         .         .       87 

XX. 

Arkansas 

.       94 

XXI. 

Iowa 

.       99 

XXII. 

Minnesota 

.     105 

XXIII. 

KANsas 

.     no 

XXIV. 

Nebraska 

.     117 

CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  j,AGE 

XXV.  Colorado I2- 

XXVI.  North  Dakota      . I30 

XXVII.  South  Dakota I35 

XXVIII.  Montana I42 

XXIX.  Wyoming 143 

XXX.  Indian  Territory.         .         .                 .         m  .155 

XXXI.  Oklahoma       .......  160 

XXXII.  Figures  that  Refuse  to  be  Overlooked.  .     164 

XXXIII.  Plans  for  the  Centennial  Celebration  .  .167 

XXXIV.  Dedicatory  Ceremonies        .        .         .  I72 
XXXV.  What  a  Century  Has   Wrought        .        .  .176 


PREFACE 

COME  events  cannot  be  fully  measured  at  the 
^^  time  of  their  occurrence.  It  requires 
decades,  even  centuries,  to  disclose  their  full  sig- 
nificance. Standing  at  the  primal  springs  of  a 
stream,  one  can  but  imperfectly  judge  what  the 
stream  may  become  before  it  shall  meet  and 
mingle  with  the  sea. 

Little  did  either  France  or  the  United  States 
dream,  on  that  eventful  last  day  of  April,  1803, 
of  all  that  lay  in  the  sale  by  the  one,  and  the 
purchase  by  the  other,  of  the  vast  and  unknown 
territory  called  "Louisiana. "  But  at  the  distance 
of  a  century  one  is  able  to  gauge  somewhat  the 
event  that  at  one  bold  business  stroke  doubled 
the  area  of  the  young  republic;  and  made  possi- 
ble the  founding  of  a  dozen  great  and  masterful 
states.  Next  to  the  winning  of  our  national 
independence,  the  purchase  of  Louisiana  had 
perhaps  the  largest  influence  in  the  development 
of  our  country. 

As  the  centennial  of  this  important  event 
approaches,   its   romantic  story  will   interest,  if 

not   fascinate,  sturdy   and   studious   patriots  the 

3 


4  IIvEFACE 

country  over.  And  it  is  with  the  faith  that  the 
story  is  worth  narrating,  and  that  the  recital  of 
it  will  be  welcome  to  many,  that  the  following 
pages  are  respectfully  presented  to  the  American 
people  by  The  Authors. 

Boston,  Mass.,  1903. 


PART  I 


30  3t  Wm 


The  Louisiana  Purchase 

AS  IT  WAS  AND  AS  IT  IS 
I 

THE    EARLY    OWNERS    OF    LOUISIANA 

THE  first  white  men  to  see  the  country  about 
the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi  were  prob- 
ably Alvarez  de  Pineda  and  his  companions,  who 
spent  six  weeks  there  in  15 19.  Ten  years  later, 
De  Narvaez  paid  the  region  a  hasty  visit. 

But  the  real  merit  of  discovery  belongs  to 
Fernando  de  Soto,  whom  the  Emperor  Charles 
V.  had  appointed  Governor  of  Cuba  and  Florida. 

In  1538  De  Soto  set  sail  from  Spain  with  a 
company  of  six  hundred  men,  to  explore  and 
settle  the  gulf  section  of  the  Western  World. 
He  was  chiefly  in  quest  of  wealth,  and  his 
explorations  led  him  through  what  is  now 
Florida,  Georgia,  Alabama,  and  Mississippi. 

With  his  companions  he  reached  the  Missis- 
sippi River  early  in  1541,  and  spent  the  summer 
in  ascending  the  mighty  stream.  His  camp  for 
the  winter  was  beside  the  beautiful  Washita, 
Returning  south  along  the  Mississippi,  in  the 
flowery  spring  of  1542,  De  SptQ  died,  and,  with  a 

7 


8 


THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 


prayer,  his  followers  tenderly  committed  his  body 
to  the  waters  he  had  discovered. 

For  more  than  a  century  little  was  done  to 
follow  up  De  Soto's  discovery.  Europe  was 
busy  with  affairs  at  home.  Yet  intrepid  French 
voyageurs — whose    praises    have    been   so    ably 


DE   SOTO   DISCOVERING  THE   MISSISSIPPI 


sung  by  Parkman — were  gradually  finding  their 
way  along  the  great  continental  streams  in  the 
far  North. 

One  of  the  most  adventurous  of  these  pioneers 
was  Robert  Cavelier  de  la  Salle.  He  made  his 
way  from  the  wilds  about  the  Great  Lakes,  along 
the  Illinois  River,  and  down  the  muddy  current 


THE    EARLY    OWNERS    OF    LOUISIANA  g 

of  the  Mississippi  to  its  outlet  in  the  Gulf.  And 
in  1682  he  gave  to  the  vast  but  undefined  region 
lying  west  of  the  river  the  name  "Louisiana,"  in 
honor  of  his  sovereign,  Louis  the  Grand. 

Before  the  American  Colonies  gained  their 
independence,  the  North  American  continent 
was  in  the  possession  of  three  of  the  most  pow- 
erful nations  of  Europe.  England  controlled 
the  Atlantic  seaboard  from  Maine  to  northern 
Florida,  with  a  large  unknown  "Hinterland" 
stretching  back  to  the  Mississippi.  The  region 
belonging  to  Spain  (exclusive  of  Florida)  lay 
along  the  Pacific,  from  Panama  to  northern 
California,  reaching  far  inland  from  that  turbu- 
lent ocean.  Between  the  Mississippi  and  the 
Spanish  strip,  and  in  the  far  North — in  what  is 
now  known  as  Canada — lay  the  possessions  of 
France. 

In  1698  Louis  XIV.  fitted  out  an  expedition  to 
colonize  Louisiana,  with  D'Iberville  in  com- 
mand. The  party  arrived  at  the  mouth  of  the 
Mississippi  in  1699,  a  fort  was  built,  and  a  colony 
established.  Between  this  new  post  and  the 
French  colonies  in  the  North  desultory  commu- 
nications were  maintained. 

In  1 717  Jean  Baptiste  de  Bienville  selected  the 
present  site  of  New  Orleans  for  a  commercial 
settlement.  He  sent  his  chief  engineer,  with  a 
force  of  eighty  convicts,  to  lay  out  a  town,  to  be 
named  Nouvelle  Orleans,  in  honor  of  the  French 
duke.  He  also  planned  the  laying  out  of  a 
great  military  square,    to  be   called    "La    Place 


IO  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

d'Armes."  This  is  known  to-day  as  "Jackson 
Square."  In  the  center  of  this  plaza  rose  a  tall 
pole,  from  which  there  proudly  floated  the  flag 
of  Bourbon  France— a  white  flag  with  three 
golden  fleurs-de-lis  conspicuous  on  its  folds. 

In  1 718,  under  the  guidance  of  John  Law,  a 
financial  adventurer,  France  adopted  a  wild-cat 
currency  scheme  to  replenish  her  empty  treasury. 
The  famous  "Joint  Stock  Mississippi  Company" 
was  organized,  with  Louisiana  and  all  its 
unknown,  and  therefore  marvelous,  resources  as 
security. 

The  shares  were  eagerly  taken,  and  for  a  time 
the  financial  fever  ran  high.  The  wildest 
excesses  of  stock-jobbing  and  gambling  were 
indulged  in.  But  early  in  1720  the  bubble  burst, 
and  France  settled  back  into  a  bankruptcy  far 
worse  than  that  which  she  had  sought  to  relieve. 
Louisiana  had  well-nigh  ruined  her. 

By  the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century  it 
became  apparent  that  the  question  of  their 
American  possessions  could  be  settled  between 
France  and  England  only  by  the  sword.  In  1756 
the  savage  Seven  Years'  War  began.  The 
domination  of  America  was  the  chief  issue. 

But  it  was  destined  that  France  should  not 
have  permanent  sovereignty  on  this  continent, 
Most  bravely  did  her  soldiers  dare  and  die  in 
defense  of  her  interests,  but  the  Gaul  was  finally 
compelled  to  yield  to  the  Saxon.  The  fall  of 
Louisburg  in  1758,  and  Montcalm's  defeat  on  the 
Plains  of  Abraham  in  1759,  were  premonitions  of 


THE    EARLY    OWNERS    OF    LOUISIANA  II 

how  the  struggle  would  end.  Pitt  was  proving 
himself  more  than  a  match  for  Madame  de  Pom- 
padour. 

In  1763  the  "Peace  of  Paris"  was  signed,  by 
which  England  secured  the  whole  of  Canada, 
and  extended  her  borders  to  the  Mississippi. 
The  treaty  was  so  humiliating  to  France  that  it 
was  called  £ Honteuse — "The  Shameful."  And 
then,  in  a  moment  of  disgust  with  her  American 
experiences,  she  determined  upon  a  complete 
abandonment  of  her  possessions  on  this  conti- 
nent, and  ceded  the  territory  of  Louisiana  to 
Spain. 


II 

UNDER   THE    SPANISH    FLAG 

THE  cession  of  Louisiana  to  Spain  occurred 
in  1763.  But  it  was  not  until  1765  that 
Spain  took  formal  possession  of  the  territory. 

Ulloa  was  the  first  Castilian  governor,  having 
been  transferred  from  Havana  to  New  Orleans. 
He  seems  to  have  been  as  haughty  as  the  aver- 
age Spanish  official  of  that  period.  But  he  had 
to  face  serious  difficulties  on  his  assumption  of 
office.  New  Orleans  had  a  large  element  of 
French  colonists  and  Creoles  who  hotly  resented 
being  turned  over  to  the  sovereignty  of  Spain, 
"Why  should  one  king  hand  us  over  to  another 
king  without  our  consent?''  was  the  pertinent 
question  they  asked  Ulloa. 

It  took  the  governor  four  years  to  overcome 
the  scruples  of  the  colonists  sufficiently  for  them 
to  allow  thfe  hoisting  of  the  Spanish  flag  in  the 
Place  d'Armes.  It  was  on  August  18,  1769,  that 
the  flag  was  unfurled,  and  it  floated  proudly  over 
the  territory  for  the  next  thirty  years. 

But  there  were  frequent  outbreaks  against 
Ulloa's  administration,  and  at  last  the  French 
clement  succeeded  in  driving  him  away.  For 
this  rebellious  act,  however,  they  suffered  sorely, 
when  afterward  the  Spanish  admiral  with  a  large 
punitive  force  reached   New  Orleans.     Some  of 


UNDER   THE    SPANISH    FLAG  13 

the  ringleaders  were  hanged,  others  imprisoned 
or  banished.  The  Acadian  and  the  Creole  had 
to  submit  to  the  Castilian. 

Little  was  done  during  the  Spanish  occupancy 
toward  developing  the  territory.  Few  explora- 
tions were  made,  except  by  the  hunters  and 
trappers.  The  Spanish  officials  contented  them- 
selves with  a  gay  life  in  New  Orleans.  Louisiana 
continued  much  the  same  unknown  land  that  it 
had  been  under  the  French  regime. 

Not  long  after  the  American  Colonies  had 
secured  their  independence,  venturesome  settlers 
pushed  back  from  the  Atlantic  Coast  to  the 
Ohio  and  the  Mississippi.  Naturally,  they 
desired  the  free  passage  of  the  great  water- 
courses for  travel  and  for  trade.  In  1795  a 
treaty  was  concluded  between  Spain  and  the 
United  States,  allowing  the  unrestricted  use  of 
the  Mississippi  to  American  shipping,  and  the 
establishment  of  a  deposite  at  New  Orleans,  at 
which  American  goods  were  to  be  received  for 
sale,  or  for  further  shipment. 

But,  despite  the  treaty,  the  Spanish  intendant 
issued  a  proclamation  placing  such  restrictions 
on  the  river  traffic  and  the  deposite  as  virtually 
to  annul  the  treaty  terms.  When  these  restric- 
tions were  enforced,  the  United  States  naturally 
was  incensed,  and  the  demand  was  made  that 
Spain  should  live  up  to  her  agreement.  In  jus- 
tice to  Spain,  however,  it  should  be  said  that  the 
intendant,  and  not  the  home  government,  was 
responsible  for  the  galling  restrictions. 


H 


THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 


The  American  settlers  along  the  Mississippi 
grew  more  and  more  sensitive  over  the  situation. 


JAMES    MADISON 
Secretary  of  State  from  1801  to  1808 


Alluding  to  their  restiveness,  Madison — then  Sec- 
retary of    State — wrote:      'The    Mississippi  to 


UNDER   THE    SPANISH    FLAG  IS 

them  is  everything.  It  is  the  Hudson,  the  Dela- 
ware, the  Potomac,  and  all  the  navigable  rivers 
of  the  Atlantic  states  formed  into  one  stream/' 
He  insisted  on  the  rights  of  the  United  States  as 
specified  by  treaty,  and  warmly  protested  against 
any  infringement  upon  them.  The  situation 
was  certainly  threatening,  when,  unexpectedly, 
the  affairs  of  Louisiana  took  an  entirely  new 
turn. 

Napoleon  was  now  in  power  in  France,  and  his 
star  in  the  ascendant.  He  was  busy  with  his 
schemes  for  reconstructing  Europe.  In  1800 
Charles  IV.  was  King  of  Spain,  but  his  wife — 
Maria  Louisa  of  Parma — was  the  power  behind 
his  throne.  Napoleon  promised  the  Spanish 
queen  to  interfere  in  behalf  of  her  brother 
the  Duke  of  Parma,  and  make  him  King  of 
Tuscany. 

As  an  offering  of  gratitude  to  Napoleon  for 
his  interest  in  her  brother's  fortunes,  Maria 
Louisa  determined  to  cede  Louisiana  back  to 
France.  A  secret  treaty  was  signed  at  San  Ilde- 
fonso  on  October  1,  1800,  in  the  presence  of 
Napoleon's  brother  Lucien  Bonaparte,  whereby 
Spain  transferred  the  territory  to  France,  and 
engaged  to  aid  F ranee  in  all  her  wars. 

Laussat  was  sent  out  to  Louisiana  as  the 
French  governor;  and  on  the  last  day  of 
November,  in  New  Orleans,  he  was  given  the 
keys  by  Salcedo,  the  Spanish  intendant.  All  the 
city  was  out  to  witness  the  transfer  of  authority. 
Windows,    housetops,   and   the   Place    d'Armes, 


l6         ,  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

were  filled  with  people  in  holiday  dress,  and 
jubilant  over  the  change.  The  flag  of  Spain  was 
lowered  with  dignity  from  the  mast  in  the 
square,  and  the  tricolor  of  France  was  run  up 
amid  salvos  of  artillery. 

Louisiana  once  more  belonged  to  France. 


Ill 

LOUISIANA    IN    POETRY 

IN  his  charming  epic  "Evangeline"  Longfel- 
low narrates  the  sad  story  of  the  expulsion 
of  the  Acadians,  with  its  pathetic  sequel.  The 
Acadians  were  banished  in  1755. 

In  the  confusion  of  the  embarkation,  Evange- 
line and  Gabriel,  her  lover,  were  separated.  The 
poet  does  not  tell  us  where  Evangeline  was 
taken,  but  the  inference  is  that  her  new  home 
was  somewhere  in  the  region  of  the  Great  Lakes. 

Evangeline  continued  to  make  solicitous 
inquiries  about  Gabriel.  And  these  were  some 
of  the  tidings  she  gleaned: 

"Gabriel  Lajeunesse!"   they  said;    "O  yes!    we   have 

seen  him. 
He  was  with  Basil  the  blacksmith,  and  both  have  gone 

to  the  prairies; 
Coureurs-des-Bois   are   they,  and  famous   hunters   and 

trappers." 
"Gabriel  Lajeunesse!"   said  others;    "O  yes!  we  have 

seen  him. 
He  is  a  voyageur  in  the  lowlands  of  Louisiana." 

Relying  on  this  information,  Evangeline  sets 
out  in  quest  of  Gabriel.  She  is  accompanied  by 
her  priest  and  friend,  Father  Felician.  Their 
boat  descends 

17 


1 8  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Past  the  Ohio  shore,  and  past  the  mouth  of  the  Wa- 
bash, 

Into  the  golden  stream  of  the  broad  and  swift  Missis- 
sippi. 

Longfellow's  description  of  the  region  through 
which  they  pass  is  intensely  realistic.  It  is  not 
surpassed  in  poetic  literature.  He  tells  of  the 
"wilderness  sombre  with  forests,"  of  the  "maze 
of  sluggish  and  devious  waters/'  of  the  "whoop 
of  the  crane,  and  the  roar  of  the  grim  alli- 
gator." Then,  as  the  voyagers  get  farther  south, 
he  tells  of  "the  columns  of  cypress  and  cedar," 
of  "the  groves  of  orange  and  citron,"  of  "the 
odorous  breath  of  magnolia  blossoms,"  and  of 
"the  floods  of  delirious  music"  of  the  mocking- 
bird. 

Father  Felician  is  made  to  describe  the  region 
in  glowing  language: 

L/    "Beautiful  is  the  land,  with  its  prairies  and  forests  of 
fruit-trees; 
Under  the  feet  a  garden  of  flowers,  and  the  bluest  of 

heavens 
Bending  above,  and  resting  its  dome  on   the  walls  of 

the  forest. 
They   who   dwell    there  have  named   it  the   Eden  of 
Louisiana, " 

One  day,  while  Evangeline  and  her  compan- 
ions were  resting  upon  the  shore,  a  boat  passed 
them,  without  their  knowledge: 

Northward  its  prow  was  Wrned,  to  the  land  of  the 
bison  and  beaver. 


LOUISIANA    IN    POETRY  IQ 

At  the  helm  sat  a  youth,  with  countenance  thoughtful 

and  careworn. 

*         *         * 

Gabriel  was  it,  who,  weary  with  waiting,  unhappy  and 

restless, 
Sought  in   the  Western  wilds  oblivion  of  self  and  of 

sorrow. 

Thus,  each  quite  unconscious  of  the  other  s 
presence,  the  lovers  pass  and  separate,  Evange- 
line  continuing  on  her  way  down  the  river. 
Here,  in  the  beautiful  Southland,  she  finds  Basil, 
Gabriel's  father,  with  broad  and  brown  face 
"under  the  Spanish  sombrero."  He  surprises 
them  with  his  marvelous  tales  of  the  soil  and  the 
climate,  and  of  the  prairies  with  numberless 
herds,  and  where  the  grass  grows  "more  in  a 
single  night  than  a  whole  Canadian  summer." 

Basil  tells  Evangeline  that  Gabriel  has  but  just 
started  north  with  a  company  of  trappers,  and 
promises  to  set  out  with  her  at  once  to  overtake 
the  young  man.  Sketching  the  journey  of  Basil 
and  Evangeline,  the  poet  gives  this  graphic 
picture  of  the  prairies  in  the  heart  of  Louisiana: 
Spreading  between   these   streams   are   the   wondrous/ 

beautiful  prairies, 
Billowy  bays  of  grass  ever  rolling  in  shadow  and  sun- 
shine, 
Bright   with    luxuriant    clusters    of    roses    and    purple 

amorphas. 
Over  them  wandered  the  buffalo  herds,  and  the  elk  and 

the  roebuck; 
Over  them  wandered  the  wolves,  and  herds  of  riderless 
horses; 


20  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Over  them  wander  the  scattered   tribes   of  Ishmael's 

children, 
Staining  the  desert  with  blood. 

Considerably  more  than  one-third  of  the  poem 
is  given  to  depicting  Louisiana  as  it  was  in  the 
days  of  French  and  Spanish  occupancy;  when 
the  larger  part  of  the  vast  tract  was  as  yet 
unknown,  except  to  the  adventurous  hunter  and 
trapper — the  advance  agent  of  a  civilization  over 
whose  achievements  men  glory  to-day. 


IV 


FEAR    OF    THE    FRENCH    OCCUPATION 

WHEN  the  news  of  the  Treaty  of  Ildefonso, 
by  which  Louisiana  was  ceded  back  to 
France,  reached^America,  there  arose  at  oncelf" 
strong  suspicion  oTthe  t  rehch  occupation^irTtKeT 
new  republic.  The  matter  was  very  widely  and 
very  wrarmly  discussed  by  the  American  Govern- 
ment and  people,  and  no  little  anxiety  was  felt 
as  to  what  the  future  might  develop. 

At  first  sight  it  seems  strange  that  the  United 
States  should  have  felt  any  distrust  of  what 
France  might  do  in  the  administration  of  the 
receded  territory.  Twenty-five  years  before 
France  had  proved  herself  a  sincere  friend  and 
ally  of  the  American  people  in  their  struggle 
against  British  domination.  Lafayette  and  his 
army  had  won  all  American  hearts.  The  French 
general  had  been  wined  and  dined  everywhere. 
Arches  had  been  built  for  his  carriage  to  pass 
under.  So  sincere  was  the  admiration  for 
him  that  it  has  survived,  undiminished  and 
untarnished,  to  the  present  hour. 

What,  then,  caused  the  sudden  revulsion  of 
American  feeling  toward  France?  France  her- 
self was  strangely  altered  in  the  quarter  of  a 
century  since  Washington  and  Lafayette  had 
fought  for  colonial  liberties  side  by  side.  _At  the 
time  the  Treaty  of  Ildefonso  was  signed,  France 
''was  controlled  by  daring  and  restless  spirits  that 


22 


THE    LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 


had  planned  and  perfected  the  Revolution.  The 
Bourbon  king  and  queen  had  been  guillotined. 
New  hands  held  the  reins  of  government.  The 
Little  Corsican  was  beginning  his  brilliant  career 
as  the  agent  of  the  French  Directory. 

JjL  was  not  the  France  of  the  Bourbons,  but  a 
new  and  revolutionary  France  into  whose  hands 


WASHINGTON   AND   LAFAYETTE  AT   MOUNT   VERNON 


the  affairs  of  Louisiana  had  fallen.     The  tricolor 
had  supplanted  the  fleurs-de-lis. 

Then,  also,  the  United  States  had  already  had 
some  dealings  with  this  new  France — dealings 
that  were  by  no  means  agreeable  to  American 
sensibilities.  American  envoys  to  Paris  had  been 
disgracefully  treated  by  the  French  Directory, 
and  had  returned  home  smarting  at  the  indigni- 
ties done  them.    Talleyrand  endeavored  to  palli- 


FEAR  OF  THE  FRENCH  OCCUPATION      23 

ate  the  conduct  of  the  Directory,  but  it  was  the 
lamest  kind  of  an  excuse  for  such  boorish 
behavior.  It  certainly  did  not  make  the  envoys 
any  the  more  amiable. 

Besides  this,  France  had  made  numerous 
aggressions  of  a  very  exasperating  nature  upon 
vessels  of  the  American  navy.  So  gross  were 
these  aggressions  that  it  seemed  more  than  likely 
the  two  nations  would  come  to  war.  In  fact,  the 
United  States  issued  letters  of  marque  against 
French  shipping. 

Napoleon,  however,  was  wise  enough  to  see 
the  peril  in  the  situation.  Negotiations  were 
opened  with  America  that  resulted  in  a  conven- 
tion between  the  two  Powers  relative  to  their 
respective  fleets,  and  in  the  restoration  of  amica- 
ble feelings  between  them.  This  convention  was 
signed  on  September  30,  1800,  and  was  simul- 
taneous with  Louisiana's  coming  again  under 
French  control. 

It  was  their  recent  experience  with  the  new 
France,  then,  that  led  the  Americans  to  be 
somewhat  suspicious  of  what  the  new  owners  of 
Louisiana  might  do  there.  Whether  their 
administration  of  territorial  affairs  would  be 
friendly  or  inimical  to  American  interests  was 
the  question  that  was  debated  in  the  country 
store  and  the  President's  council  alike.  ^And 
the  more  it  was  discussed,  the  more  did  it  appear 
that  the  French  re-occupation  of  Louisiana  was 
a  menace  to  the  peace  and  prosperity  of  the 
American  Republic. 


V 


PRESIDENT   JEFFERSON  S    ANXIETY 

IT  was  President  Jefferson's  determined  policy 
to  keep  the  United  States  free  from  Euro- 
pean entanglements.  But  he  saw  that  this  would 
be  impossible  if  a  European  Power  should  pos- 
sess the  outlet  of  the  Mississippi  Valley.  The 
American  people  were  already  much  disturbed 
at  the  prospect,  and  their  aversion  to  the  occu- 
pation of  Louisiana  by  France  grew  more  pro- 
nounced the  more  they  thought  of  New  Orleans 
in  French  hands. 

At  last,  Jefferson  could  no  longer  restrain  his 
sentiments  on  this  matter,  and  in  1802  he  voiced 
them  in  a  remarkably  able  letter  to  Robert  R. 
Livingston,  at  that  time  the  American  Minister 
to  France.  In  this  communication  Jefferson 
reveals  his  kindly  feeling  toward  France,  allud- 
ing to  her  as  "our  natural  friend,''  and  "as  one 
with  which  we  never  could  have  an  occasion  of 
difference."  Most  sincerely  did  he  deprecate 
anything  like  difficulty  between  the  two  countries. 

But  at  the  same  time  he  correctly  gauged  the 
temper  of  the  American  people  when  he  said: 
"Every  eye  in  the  United  States  is  now  fixed  on 
the  affairs  of  Louisiana.  Perhaps  nothing  since 
the  Revolutionary  War  has  produced  more 
uneasy  sensations  through  the  body  of  the 
nation." 

24 


PRESIDENT   JEFFERSON  S   ANXIETY  25 

He  then,  in  strong,  cogent,  but  temperate  lan- 
guage, gave  the  reasons  for  the  popular  agita- 
tion: 

The  cession  of  Louisiana  and  the  Floridas  by 
Spain  to  France  works  most  sorely  on  the  United 
States.  ...  It  completely  reverses  all  the  polit- 
ical relations  of  the  United  Statesrarrd^vdlLform 
a  new  epoch  in  our  political  course.  .  .  .  There 
is  on  the  globe  one  single  spot,  the  possessor  of 

which  is  ourL-aaliliaLand  habitual  enemy. Jt  is 

JNew  Orleans,  through  which  the  produce  o" 
three-eighths  of  our  territory  must  pass  to 
market,  and  from  its  fertility  it  will  ere  long 
yield  more  than  half  of  our  whole  product,  and 
contain  more  than  half  of  our  inhabitants. 

France,  placing  herself  in  that  door,  assumes 
to  us  the  attitude  of  defiance.  Spain  might  have 
retained  it  quietly  for  years.  Her  pacific  dispo- 
sitions, her  feeble  state,  would  induce  her  to 
increase  our  facilities  there,  so  that  her  posses- 
sion of  the  place  would  be  hardly  felt  by  us. 
And  it  would  not  be  very  long,  perhaps,  when 
some  circumstance  might  arise  which  might 
make  the  cession  of  it  to  us  the  price  of  some- 
thing of  more  worth  to  her. 

Not  so  can  it  ever  be  in  the  hands  of  France; 
the  impetuosity  of  her  temper,  the  energy  and 
restlessness  of  her  character,  placed  in  a  point 
of  eternal  friction  with  us,  and  our  character, 
which  is  high-minded,  enterprising  and  energetic 
as  any  nation  on  earth,  .  .  .  render  it  impossible 
that  France  and  the  United  States  can  long  con- 
tinue friends,  when  they  meet  in  so  irritable  a 
position.  They,  as  well  as  we,  must  be  blind  if 
they  do  not  see  this;  and  we  must  be  very 
improvident  if  we  do  not  begin  to  make  arrange- 
ments on  that  hypothesis. 


26  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

The  President  then  passes  on  to  do  some  mild 
and  cautious  threatening,  by  saying  that  if 
France  shall  determine  to  maintain  possession 
of  New  Orleans,  it  will  certainly  lead  to  an  anti- 
French  coalition  of  the  United  States  and  Britain 
— "two  nations  who,  in  conjunction,  can  maintain 
exclusive  possession  of  the  ocean." 

"From  that  moment,"  he  continues,  "we  must 
marry  ourselves  to  the  British  fleet  and  nation." 
And  he  ventures  the  prophecy  that,  should  the 
United  States  be  compelled  to  make  such  a 
coalition  with  England,  New  Orleans  would  be 
easily  wrested  from  France. 

In  closing  his  letter,  Jefferson  suggests  to  Liv- 
ingston the  possibility  of  France  ceding  "the 
island  of  New  Orleans  and  the  Floridas"  to  the 
United  States,  and  says  that  such  an  arrange- 
ment would  remove  the  causes  of  jarring  and 
irritation  between  the  two  republics,  and  would 
relieve  the  United  States  of  the  necessity  of 
taking  any  steps  toward  making  arrangements 
in  another  quarter — that  is,  with  Britain. 

Jefferson's  letter  to  Livingston  was  left  open 
for  the  perusal  of  M.  Dupont  de  Nemours,  a 
French  diplomat,  in  the  hope  that  he  would  use 
his  influence  with  his  countrymen  to  refrain  from 
occupying  Louisiana. 

But  in  a  note  to  Nemours  the  President  makes 
use  of  language  that  shows  how  serious  the 
situation  was.  He  reminds  the  Frenchman  that 
"this  little  event  of  France's  possessing  herself 
of   Louisiana  ...  is  the  embryo  of  a  tornado 


PRESIDENT   JEFFERSON  S   ANXIETY  27 

that  will  burst  on  the  countries  on  both  sides  of 
the  Atlantic,  and  involve  in  its  effects  their 
highest  destinies."  And  he  adds,  not  as  a  men- 
ace, but  as  a  possibility — that  "this  measure  will 
cost  France,  and  perhaps  not  very  long  hence,  a 
war  which  will  annihilate  her  on  the  ocean." 
And  then  he  asks  the  diplomat  to  "impress  upon 
the  Government  of  France  the  inevitable  conse- 
quences of  their  taking  possession  of  Louisiana," 
and  concludes  with  these  words:  "If  you  can  be 
the  means  of  informing  the  wisdom  of  Bonaparte 
of  all  its  consequences,  you  have  deserved  well 
of  both  countries." 


VI 


NAPOLEON    IN    STRAITS 


WHEN  Spain  retroceded  Louisiana  to 
France,  it  was  evidently  the  intention 
of  Napoleon  to  occupy  and  develop  the  terri- 
tory. He  was  then  First  Consul  of  France,  and 
not  without  ambitions  for  colonial  empire.  It 
was  this  conviction  regarding  him  that  so  greatly 
disquieted  the  American  people  and  Govern- 
ment, and  that  led  the  President  to  write  so 
plainly,  and  even  so  threateningly,  to  the  French 
Count  de  Nemours. 

But  the  immediate  occupation  and  exploitation 
of  Louisiana  were  checked  by  Napoleon's 
troubles  and  reverses  in  Hayti.  For  a  long 
period  France  had  been  dominant  in  the  affairs 
of  that  island,  and  by  the  Treaty  of  Basel  in  1795 
she  had  acquired  the  title  to  it.  Toussaint 
TOuverture,  the  leader  of  the  black  race  there, 
was  at  first  a  loyal  assistant  of  the  French  offi- 
cials. Under  him  the  slaves  were  freed,  and  an 
attempt  by  Britain  to  capture  the  island  was 
completely  frustrated. 

But  in  1801  Napoleon  determined  to  curb  the 
growing  power  of  the  natives,  and  reestablish 
slavery.  To  effect  the  subjugation  he  sent 
twenty-five  thousand  French  troops  under  Gen- 
eral    Leclerc.      The     blacks    under    Toussaint 

28 


NAPOLEON    IN    STRAITS 


2Q 


retired  to  the  mountains  in  the  interior,  and  for 
some  time  maintained  a  desultory  warfare. 


NAPOLEON   I. 


By  an  act  of  unmitigated   treachery   Leclerc 
captured  Toussaint,  and  sent  him  to  a  French 


30  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

prison,  where  he  died  in  1803.  His  countrymen, 
infuriated  at  the  loss  of  their  leader,  waged  a 
barbarous  war  against  the  French,  and  finally 
compelled  them  to  evacuate  the  island.  A 
British  squadron,  happening  along  at  the  time, 
took  eight  thousand  of  the  French  troops 
prisoners,  Napoleon  had  lost  Hayti.  But 
in  his  efforts  to  retain  it  he  had  been  com- 
pelled to  postpone  his  intentions  regarding 
Louisiana, 

Quite  naturally,  Napoleon  was  furious  over 
the  loss  of  Hayti,  and  specially  incensed  against 
England,  wMch— -had  so  effectively  aided  in 
wresting  the  beautiful  isle  of  the  tropics  from 
his  grasp.  To  humble  England  became  now 
his  thought  by  day,  and  dream  by  night — a 
thought  and  dream  never  absent  afterward  from 
his  mind.  How  signally  he  failed  in  this  ambi- 
tion, Waterloo  and  St.  Helena  graphically 
emphasize. 

In  1803  Napoleon  was  sorely  in  need  of  money 
to  inaugurate  his  war  with  Britain.  Whatever 
benefits  the  Revolution  had  brought  to  France — 
and  it  had  certainly  brought  some — it  had  most 
effectually  depleted  the  national  treasury.  The 
nobles  of  France,  justly  alarmed  at  the  new 
order  of  things,  had  transferred  all  their  porta- 
ble wealth  to  other  and  safer  countries.  Robes- 
pierre had  been  compelled  to  issue  his  famous 
"assignats,"  or  fiat  money;  but  notwithstanding 
his  threat  of  the  guillotine  for  any  one  who  dis- 
credited them,  the  issue  prQye^  &  flat  failure;  so 


NAPOLEON    IN    STRAITS  3 1 

disinclined  are  the  people  to  accept  dishonest 
money. 

Andjiere^was  Napoleon,  with  sdaeffres-atmn- 
darUand  ambitious,  in  his  mind,  hut  with  nnrp.nHy 
'caslTta  make^hem  real.  It  was  this  situation  of 
need  that  led  him  to  think  favorably  of  the  pos- 
sible sale  of  Louisiana  to  the  Americans.  Such 
a  bargain  would  furnish  him  the  first  funds  for 
war;  so  he  said  to  his  brother  Joseph. 

But,  in  addition  to  thj^mQre_niercenary  view 
oFlhe_matter,   he_had  an  ilLjdefiflretP1^!?^ 
thajLh^-iniglilJas^^ 

BntaijiJU_^s_^^  He  knew, 

and  only  too  well,  that  Britain  hacf^once  before 
beaten  France  on  the  American  continent.  He 
had  heard  of  Acadia,  of  Louisburg,  and  of  the 
Plains  of  Abraham.  And  Britain  might  be  the 
victor  again.  New  Orleans  might  have  to  yield 
to  Saxon  prowess,  as  had  Louisburg  and  Quebec 
years  before.  It  was  this  conjunction  of  affairs — 
Napoleon's  need  of  ready  money,  and  his  anxiety 
about  the  retention  of  Louisiana — that  made  him 
open  to  the  approaches  of  the  American  Repub- 
lic, and  that  finally  reconciled  him,  however 
reluctantly,  to  the  sale  of  the  distant  and  cov- 
eted territory.  It  was  not  love  of  America  so 
much  as  hatred  of  England  that  led  him  to  sub- 
mit to  the  alienation  of  Louisiana. 

The  interesting  story  of  how  and  where  he 
reached  his  determination  to  sell  his  American 
domain  for  spot  cash  must  next  be  told. 


VII 


A    MESSAGE    FROM    NAPOLEON  S    BATHTUB 

"  Ty^  NOW  merely,  Lucien,  that  I  have  decided 

1 V     to  sell  Louisiana  to  the  Americans!" 

This  was  the  startling  statement  made  by  the 
First  Consul  of  France  to  his  younger  brother, 
while  disporting  himself  in  his  bath  scented  with 
Cologne  water. 

The  graphic  story  is  narrated  by  Lucien  Bona- 
parte in  his  MemotreSy  published  in  Paris  in  1882. 

The  evening  before  the  incident  of  the  bath, 
Joseph  Bonaparte  visited  his  brother  Lucien 
with  a  piece  of  news  that  kept  them  from  the 
theater  for  a  night. 

"The  General  wishes  to  alienate  Louisiana," 
said  Joseph. 

"Bah!"  said  Lucien.  "Who  will  buy  it  from 
him?" 

"The  Americans." 

"The  idea!  If  he  could  wish  it,  the  Chambers 
would  not  consent  to  it." 

"And  therefore,"  responded  Joseph,  "he 
expects  to  do  without  their  consent.  That  is 
what  he  replied  to  me." 

"What?  He  really  said  that  to  you?  That  is  a 
little  too  much!  But  no,  it  is  impossible.  It  is  a 
bit  of  brag  at  your  expense." 

"No,   no,"    insisted    Joseph;    "he  spoke    very 

32 


A   MESSAGE    FROM    NAPOLEON'S    BATHTUB  33 

seriously;  and,  what  is  more,  he  added  to  me 
that  this  sale  would  furnish  him  the  first  funds 
for  war." 

The  brothers  parted  for  the  night  with  the 
understanding  that  they  would  visit  Napoleon 
early  the  next  morning,  when  they  hoped  to  dis- 
suade him  from  alienating  the  colony. 

The  morning  found  them  both  at  the  Tuileries, 
just  as  Napoleon  had  entered  his  bath.  He 
invited  them  in.  The  conversation  reverted  at 
once  to  Louisiana,  the  brothers  endeavoring  to 
dissuade  him  — ■  Lucien  quietly,  Joseph  more 
warmly — from  alienating  the  territory,  and  both 
urging  the  point  that  "the  Chambers  will  not 
give  their  consent  to  it." 

"Gentlemen,"  said  Napoleon  from  his  per- 
fumed bath,  "think  what  you  please  about  it,  but 
give  up  this  affair  as  lost,  both  of  you;  you, 
Lucien,  on  account  of  the  sale  in  itself;  you, 
Joseph,  because  I  shall  get  along  without  the 
consent  of  anyone  whomsoever;  do  you  under- 
stand ?" 

At  this,  Joseph  lost  his  temper,  and,  approach- 
ing the  bathtub,  replied  in  an  angry  tone: 

"You  will  do  well,  my  dear  brother,  not  to 
expose  your  plans  to  Parliamentary  discussion; 
for  I  declare  to  you  that  I  am  the  first  one  to 
place  himself,  if  it  is  necessary,  at  the  head  of 
the  opposition  which  cannot  fail  to  be  made  to 
you. 

This  vehement  resolution  was  met  by  "more 
than  Olympian  bursts  of  laughter"  from  Napo- 


34  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

leon,  which  angered  Joseph  still  more,  and  led 
him  to  exclaim: 

"Laugh,  laugh,  laugh,  then!  None  the  less,  I 
will  do  what  I  say;  and,  although  I  do  not  like 
to  mount  the  Tribune,  this  time  they  shall  see 
me  there." 

Upon  this  Napoleon  lifted  himself  half-way 
out  of  his  bath,  and  said  in  a  tone  energetically 
serious  and  solemn: 

"You  will  have  no  need  to  stand  forth  as 
orator  of  the  opposition,  for  I  repeat  to  you  that 
this  discussion  will  not  take  place,  for  the  reason 
that  the  plan  which  is  not  fortunate  enough  to 
obtain  your  approbation,  conceived  by  me,  nego- 
tiated by  me,  will  be  ratified  and  executed  by  me 
all  alone;  do  you  understand?  by  me,  who  snap 
my  fingers  at  your  opposition." 

By  this  time  Joseph  was  close  to  the  bathtub, 
his  face  red  with  anger,  and  heated  words  about 
to  pass  his  lips,  when  Napoleon  suddenly  sank 
himself  into  the  water,  of  which  the  tub  was  full, 
and  a  wave  splashed  Joseph  from  head  to  foot. 

"He  had  received,"  says  Lucien,  "all  over  him, 
the  most  copious  ablution." 

But  the  perfumed  flood  calmed  Joseph's  anger, 
and  he  contented  himself  with  letting  the  valet 
sponge  and  dry  his  clothes,  the  brothers  mean- 
while regretting  greatly  that  the  valet  "had 
remained  a  witness  of  this  serious  folly  between 
such  actors." 

This  is  a  strange  story  that  Lucien  Bonaparte 
tells,  but  one  portion  of  it,  at  least,  is  singularly 


A    MESSAGE    FROM   NAPOLEON  S    BATHTUB        35 

in  keeping  with  what  is  known  of  Napoleon's 
character.  He  would  sell  Louisiana,  we  are 
told,  without  any  consultation  of  the  French 
Chambers.  This  is  very  much  like  him.  Though 
he  was  only  First  Consul  now,  he  was  already 
fostering  imperialistic  ideas,  in  which  the  Parlia- 
ment of  France  should  have  only  the  subordi- 
nate and  subservient  place. 

Livingston,  in  a  letter  to  Madison,  gives  a 
vivid  picture  of  the  situation.  "There  never  was 
a  government,"  he  wrote,  "in  which  less  could 
be  done  by  negotiation  than  here.  There  are 
no  people,  no  legislators,  no  counsellors.  One 
man  is  everything.  His  ministers  are  mere 
clerks,  and  his  legislators  and  counsellors  mere 
parade  officers." 

From  this  point  onward  Napoleon's  ascent,  or, 
to  speak  more  truly,  his  descent,  to  empire  was 
accelerated.  The  die  was  cast;  with  or  without 
the  will  of  the  Chambers,  his  will  must  be  domi- 
nant in  France. 


VIII 

THE    PRICE    OF    THE    TERRITORY 

WHEN  Napoleon  reached  the  decision  to 
sell  Louisiana,  he  very  naturally  desired 
a  good  round  sum  for  it.  His  coming  struggle 
with  England  would  be  costly,  and  Louisiana 
must  be  made  to  help  foot  the  large  bill. 

As  the  proposed  alienation  of  the  province 
was  a  question  of  State,  it  ought  to  have  fallen 
to  Talleyrand  to  deal  with  the  intending  pur- 
chasers. But  Napoleon  suspected  his  Prime 
Minister  of  having  an  itching  palm,  so  he 
entrusted  the  matter  to  M.  Marbois,  his  Minister 
of  Finance,  a  shrewd  but  honorable  man.  It 
was  with  this  astute  financier  that  Livingston, 
the  United  States  Minister  to  France,  had  to 
deal. 

The  sum  that  Marbois  first  named  to  Living- 
ston was  100,000,000  francs  ($20,000,000).  Besides 
this  lump  sum  to  France,  the  United  States  was 
to  pay  the  claims  of  the  citizens  of  Louisiana 
against  France.  These  amounted  to  nearly 
$4,000,000. 

Livingston  declared  this  sum  exorbitant,  but 
would  not  inform  Marbois  what  the  United 
States  would  pay,  until  he  had  consulted  Mr. 
Monroe. 

The  fact  is  that  Livingston  knew  little  if  any 

36 


THE    PRICE    OF   THE    TERRITORY  37 

more  about  Louisiana  than  the  Frenchman  with 
whom  he  was  negotiating.  What  he  would  have 
been  entirely  satisfied  with  was  the  possession  of 
New  Orleans.  neiraa  no  desire  to  see  his 
countrymen  extending  their  residence  to  the 
west  of  the  Father  of  Waters.  What  lay  in 
that  region  of  the  trapper  and  savage  was  utterly 
unknown  to  him,  and  therefore  unprized  by  him. 
And  he  naturally  considered  the  Frenchman's 
price  much  too  high  for  New  Orleans  and  its 
vicinity  alone. 

And  no  more  did  President  Jefferson  realize 
what  there  was  in  Louisiana.  Maps  were  very 
incomplete  in  his  day.  The  province  had  not 
yet  been  surveyed.  Jefferson  regarded  it  as 
not  worth  the  taking  or  the  possessing.  He 
declared — so  it  is  said  on  good  authority — that  it 
would  not  be  inhabited  for  a  thousand  years,  a 
prophecy  as  wide  of  the  mark  as  any  ever  made. 
He,  also,  would  have  been  content  with  the  pos- 
session of  New  Orleans.  For  the  remainder  of 
the  region  he  was  unwilling  to  expend  anything. 

In  fact,  all  around  the  circle,  the  ignorance 
concerning  Louisiana  was  colossal.  Napoleon 
knew  nothing  abmtfc-4t^-4*er^  did  Livingston  or 
Jefferson  know  more.  Had  Napoleon  dreamed 
of  the  wealth  of  that  vast  ''Hinterland,"  he 
would  never  have  sold  it  for  a  song,  as  he  did. 
And  had  Livingston  known  about  it,  he  would 
have  jumped  at  Marbois's  first  offer  of  it  for  a 
hundred  million  francs. 

In  blissful   ignorance  of  what  was  being  bar- 


38 


THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 


gained  for,  the  negotiations  were  continued,  and 
at  last  the  sum  of  75,000,000  francs  ($15,000,000) 
was  agreed  upon,  and  the  documents  of  transfer 
were  signed  and  sealed  on  April  30,  1803.  The 
names  of  Livingston,  Monroe,  and  Marbois, 
were  in  Napoleon's  presence  affixed  to  the  treaty 
of  cession. 


THE    UNITED   STATES    BEFORE    1803 


The  three  men  shook  hands  with  much  cor- 
diality. "Gentlemen,"  said  Livingston,  "we  have 
lived  long,  but  this  is  the  noblest  work  of  our 
whole  lives  This  will  change  vast  solitudes  into 
flourishing  districts." 

And  Napoleon  is  said  to  have  remarked: 

"A  few  lines  of  a  treaty  restored  to  me  the 


THE    PRICE    OF    THE    TERRITORY 


39 


Province  of  Louisiana,  and  repaired  the  fault  of 
the  French  negotiator  who  abandoned  it  in 
seventeen  sixty-three.  But  scarcely  have  I  re- 
covered it  when  I  must  lose  it  again." 

And    then,   as    though   a   passing   memory  of 
England  fanned  his  passion,  he  added: 


THE   UNITED   STATES   AFTER  1803 


"But  this  I  promise  you:  it  shall  cost  dearer  to 
those  who  oblige  me  to  strip  myself  of  it  than  to 
those  to  whom  I  deliver  it;  for  I  have  given 
England  by  this  act  a  rival  on  the  high  seas  that 
will  one  day  humble  her  pride!" 

Long  years  afterward  it  was  found  that  the 
Louisiana  Purchase  embraced,  in   round   num- 


< 

Pu 

W 

X 


IX 

Spain's  opposition  to  the  purchase 

THE  documents  transferring  Louisiana  to 
the  United  States  were  signed  on  April 
30,  1803.  But  the  formal  surrender  of  the  terri- 
tory did  not  take  place  until  the  20th  of  the  fol- 
lowing December.  On  that  date  Laussat — the 
French  governor  at  New  Orleans — handed  over 
the  territory  to  W.  C.  C.  Claiborne  and  Gen. 
James  Wilkinson,  the  American  commissioners. 
The  transfer  was  made  in  the  old  Cabildo,  the 
Spanish  Court  of  Justice;  a  building  that  is  still 
standing,  facing  Jackson  Square. 

There  was  an  imposing  military  display,  after 
which  the  tricolor  of  France  was  lowered,  and 
the  Stars  and  Stripes  run  up.  The  populace  was 
deeply  interested  in  the  proceedings;  but,  not- 
withstanding the  pageant,  many  of  the  people 
were  much  annoyed  at  Napoleon's  selling  them 
out  without  the  slightest  consultation  of  their 
wishes  in  the  matter.  But  this  was  the  Napo- 
leonic policy  at  the  time:  he  would  choose  for 
himself,  without  consulting  the  Chambers  on  one 
side  of  the  sea,  or  the  people  on  the  other. 

As  soon  as  Spain  learned  of  the  sale  of  Louisi- 
ana, she  indignantly  protested  against  its  cession 
to  the  American  Republic.  The  ground  of  her 
complaint  was,  that  by  the  Treaty  of  Ildefonso 
she  had  ceded  the  territory  to  France  with  the 
condition  duly  specified  that  if  France  should  ever 

alienate  the  territory,,  it  should  be  ceded  back  to 

, — —  41 


42  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Jipain.  She  contended  that  Napoleon  had  sold 
the  territory  illegally.  By  her  remonstrances 
she  warned  the  United  States  not  to  touch  Lou- 
isiana. 

The  Americans,  however,  were  not  inclined  to 
pay  much  heed  to  the  Spanish  protest.  It  was 
not  their  fault,  so  they  reasoned,  if  Napoleon 
had  been  hoodwinking  Spain.  _  Napoleon  and 
Spain  must  straighten  out  this  tangle  between 
themselves.  The  United  States  had  bought  the 
province  in  good  faith,  fully  believing  that  Napo- 
leon had  a  perfect  right  to  make  the  sale.  If  he 
had  no  such  right,  because  of  some  secret  com- 
pact with  Spain,  Spain  must  settle  with  him. 

The  correspondence  of  the  United  States  with 
the  Spanish  Court,  conducted  by  James  Madison, 
was  very  explicit,  and  almost  tart.  Madison 
sent  his  instructions  to  the  United  States  Min- 
ister at  Madrid,  and  bade  him  inform  the  Court 
of  the  absolute  determination  of  the  United 
States  to  maintain  its  rights  in  Louisiana.  He 
also  threatened  Spain  with  a  probable  coalition 
of  the  United  States  with  England,  in  which 
event  "Spain  would  not  only  lose  Louisiana,  but 
also  all  her  possessions  to  the  west  of  it." 

"What  is  it  that  Spain  dreads?"  he  asked.  "It 
is  presumed  that  she  dreads  the  growing  power 
of  this  country,  and  the  direction  of  it  against 
her  possessions  within  its  reach.  Can  she  anni- 
hilate this  power?  No.  Can  she  sensibly  retard 
its  growth?  No.  Does  not  common  prudence, 
then,  advise  her  to  conciliate  this  Nation,  and 


SPAIN  S    OPPOSITION   TO   THE    PURCHASE  43 

secure  the  good-will  of  a  power  that  is  formida- 
ble to  her?" 

To  guard againsLany open  resistoftee-fa^rSpmn 
to  the  peaceful— occupatioiL.~x>£  the  territory, 
American  troops  were  raised  in  Tennessee  to  go 
to  New  Qrleansrand  insure  it-agalnst  attack. 
But  Spain  was  too  wise  to  make  any  warlike 
move.  She  had  to  content  herself  with  protest- 
ing without  any  show^-oliorce. 

President  Jefferson  was  determined  to  main- 
tain the  validity  of  the  purchase,  as  his  message 
to  Congress  in  1804  abundantly  proves.  And 
Spain  fortunately  understood  Jefferson's  inten- 
tions, and  bowed  before  them  as  gracefully  as 
she  could.  She  withdrew  from  Louisiana,  and 
set  herself  to  the  administration  of  her  other 
American  possessions,  which  she  felt  were  none 
too  secure. 

But  Spain's  defea^-irudiplomaejr  led  her  pro- 
foundly to  distrust  and  dislike^Napole^n.  He 
had  not  kept  faith  with  her,  she  thought.  Upon 
all  this,  however,  America  could  look  with  con- 
siderable complacency.  It  was  only  another 
European  complication,  of  which  there  were 
several  about  that  time. 

Meanwhile,  for  good  or  for  ill,  she  was  the 
peaceful  possessor  of  Louisiana,  and  New 
Orleans,  the  key  to  the  province,  was  in  her 
strong  right  hand,  where  it  has  remained  now 
for  a  full  century. 


X 

president  jefferson's  quandary 

WHEN  Jefferson  acquired  by  purchase  the 
vast  possessions  of  France  beyond  the 
Mississippi,  it  was  considered  by  his  friends  a 
masterpiece  of  diplomacy,  and  was  hailed  with 
delight  by  the  majority  of  the  American  people. 
Now,  however,  it  must  be  paid  for,  and  Congress 
alone  could  furnish  the  necessary  millions. 

But  just  here  was  a  serious  difficulty.  Jeffer- 
son had  bought  Louisiana  without  having  con- 
sulted Congress,  and  without  that  body's  express 
sanction.  It  was,  according  to  Bryce,  "the  boldest 
step  that  a  President  of  the  United  States  had 
yet  taken."  The  President  is  said  to  have 
known  that  he  was  exceeding  his  powers  when 
he  was  planning  the  deal,  but  yet  he  made  it. 
And  now  he  had  to  submit  his  action  to  Con- 
gress for  review.  Would  it  accept  the  Presi- 
dential coup  dUtat,  or  not? 

Fortunately  for  him,  Congress  pocketed  the 
slight  he  had  put  upon  it,  and  voted  the  money 
for  payment.  So  far  as  this  feature  of  the  pre- 
carious situation  was  concerned,  all  went  well. 

But  there  was  another  matter  that  gave  Jeffer- 
son and  Congress  no  little  anxiety:  Was  the 
purchase  of  Louisiana  constitutional,  or  not? 
The  President  and  his  Federalist  friends  were 
what  was  known  as  "Strict  Constructionists"  of 

44 


PRESIDENT   JEFFERSON  S    QUANDARY  45 

the  Constitution.  Whatever  it  decreed  they  felt 
themselves  bound  to  abide  by  literally. 

In  the  heated  congressional  debates  that  fol- 
lowed the  purchase,  the  Federalist  party  strenu- 
ously maintained  that  "even  Congress  had  no 
power  to  acquire  more  territory  to  be  formed 
into  states  of  the  Union."  If  this  proposition 
was  correct — and  even  Mr.  Jefferson  admitted 
it  was — then  the  Constitution  had  certainly  been 
violated  by  the  purchase,  and  Louisiana  could 
not  become  a  part  of  the  United  States. 

But  the  province  had  been  bought,  and  the 
treaty  of  cession  had  been  signed  and  sealed  by 
the  high  contracting  parties.  How  to  straighten 
out  the  tangle  was  the  immediate  and  difficult 
question.  Either  some  way  out  of  the  consti- 
tutional dilemma  must  be  found,  or  Louisiana 
must  go  back  to  France,  with  the  possibility  of 
its  becoming  in  time  a  powerful  and  possibly 
hostile  state  on  the  western  border  of  the  Ameri- 
can Republic. 

The  President  suggested  the  passing  of  an 
amendment  to  the  Constitution,  in  order  to 
validate  his  action.  Other  Federalists  tried  to 
reconstruct  their  former  arguments  against  a  lax 
construction  of  the  Constitution;  in  other  words, 
they  went  back  on  their  earlier  convictions. 
There  were  others,  and  not  a  few,  who  avowed 
what  Bryce  calls  "the  dangerous  doctrine"  that 
if  Louisiana  could  be  brought  into  the  Union 
only  by  breaking  down  the  walls  of  the  Consti- 
tution, broken  they  must  be. 


46  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

After  a  lengthy  consideration  of  the  matter,  the 
majority  of  Congress  came  to  the  conclusion  that 
its  approval  was  a  quite  sufficient  ratification  of 
a  step  of  so  transcendent  importance.  The 
majority  was  led  to  this  view  of  the  situation  by 
the  eloquent  arguments  of  Alexander  Hamilton, 
whose  farseeing  patriotism  warmly  defended  the 
validity,  as  well  as  the  wisdom,  of  the  purchase. 

But,  though  Congress  aided  Mr.  Jefferson  out 
of  the  difficult  situation  in  which  he  found  himself, 
and  by  its  vote  made  his  act  valid,  it  has  never 
ceased  to  be  a  debatable  question  in  American 
politics  whether  the  purchase  was  constitutional, 
or  not.  Eminent  men  have  discussed  the  ques- 
tion since  it  was  first  settled,  and  have  reached 
widely  different  conclusions. 

Since  the  late  Spanish-American  War,  the 
same  question  has  been  warmly  debated  by 
American  statesmen,  some  of  whom  have  main- 
tained that  the  acquisition  of  alien  territory, 
such  as  the  Philippines,  finds  no  sanction  in  the 
Constitution,  but  is  made  in  direct  violation  of  it. 

Thus  strangely  does  history  repeat  itself.  The 
arguments  of  the  Federalists  at  the  beginning 
of  the  nineteenth  century  were  almost  exactly 
reproduced  by  some  American  statesmen  as  the 
twentieth  century  was  dawning.  And  these 
arguments  were  answered  in  much  the  same 
way — that  in  a  matter  of  such  moment  a  strict 
construction  of  the  Constitution  must  not  stand 
in  the  way  of  national  expansion. 

The  best  authorities  now  hold  that  the  Con- 


PRESIDENT   JEFFERSON  S    QUANDARY  47 

stitution  did  really  permit  the  Federal  Govern- 
ment to  acquire  Louisiana,  and  Congress  to 
form  states  out  of  it.  Perhaps  as  convincing  an 
argument  as  can  be  found  is  that  of  one  of 
Michigan's  ablest  Supreme  Court  judges,  Thomas 
M.  Cooley,  presented  in  a  pamphlet  on  'The 
Purchase  of  Louisiana,"  published  in  Indianap- 
olis in  1886. 

Judge  Cooley  contends  that  there  was  no  vio- 
lation of  the  United  States  Constitution  in  the 
acquisition  of  Louisiana,  and  that  there  was  no 
necessity  for  any  amendment  to  that  famous 
document  to  render  President  Jefferson's  act 
valid. 


XI 


SENATORIAL   OBJECTIONS    AND    FEARS 

ACCORDING  to  the  Constitution,  the  Senate 
of  the  United  States  had  to  pass  upon  the 
treaty  by  which  France  was  to  cede  Louisiana 
to  the  Americans.  The  debates  on  the  acquisi- 
tion of  the  province  by  the  upper  house  of  Con- 
gress were  both  protracted  and  earnest. 

Some  of  the  extreme  Federalists,  as  has  been 
seen  before,  took  the  ground  that  new  territory 
could  not  be  acquired  by  the  republic  except  by 
a  distinct  violation  of  the  Constitution.  But 
Hamilton  and  his  friends  answered  all  such 
arguments  by  calling  attention  to  the  necessities, 
rather  than  to  the  logic,  of  the  situation,  and  by 
appeals  to  patriotism;  and  he  and  they  finally 
prevailed. — 

But  other  arguments  were  presented  that  fur- 
nish singularly  interesting  reading  to  the  present 
day.  One  of  these  was  by  Senator  White,  who 
said: 

I  wish  not  to  be  understood  as  predicting  that  the 
French  will  not  cede  to  us  the  actual  and  quiet  pos- 
session of  the  Territory.  I  hope  to  God  they  may,  for 
possession  of  it  we  must  have — I  mean  of  New  Orleans, 
and  of  such  other  positions  on  the  Mississippi  as  may 
be  necessary  to  secure  to  us  forever  the  complete  and 
uninterrupted  navigation  of  that  river.     This  I  have 

48 


SENATORIAL   OBJECTIONS    AND    FEARS  4Q 

ever  been  in  favor  of;  I  think  it  essential  to  the  peace 
of  the  United  States,  and  to  the  prosperity  of  our 
western  country. 

But  as  to  Louisiana,  this  new,  immense,  unbounded 
world,  if  it  should  ever  be  incorporated  into  this 
Union,  which  I  have  no  idea  can  be  done  without 
altering  the  Constitution,  I  believe  it  will  be  the 
greatest  curse  that  could  at  present  befall  us;  it  may 
be  productive  of  innumerable  evils,  and  especially  of 
one  that  I  fear  to  look  upon. 

Gentlemen  on  all  sides,  with  very  few  exceptions, 
agree  that  the  settlement  of  this  country  will  be  highly 
injurious  and  dangerous  to  the  United  States.  But  as 
to  what  has  been  suggested  of  removing  the  Creeks 
and  other  nations  of  Indians  from  the  eastern  to  the 
western  banks  of  the  Mississippi,  and  of  making  the 
fertile  regions  of  Louisiana  a  howling  wilderness, 
never  to  be  trodden  by  the  foot  of  civilized  m^n,  it  is 
impracticable.  ...  You  had  as  well  pretend  to  inhibit 
the  fish  from  swimming  in  the  sea  as  to  prevent  the 
population  of  that  country  after  its  sovereignty  shall 
become  ours.  To  every  man  acquainted  with  the 
adventurous,  roving,  and  enterprising  temper  of  our 
people,  and  with  the  manner  in  which  our  western 
country  has  been  settled,  such  an  idea  must  be  chimer- 
ical. The  inducements  will  be  so  strong  that  it  will  be 
impossible  to  restrain  our  citizens  from  crossing  the 
river. 

Louisiana  must  and  will  become  settled,  if  we  hold 
it,  and  with  the  very  population  that  would  otherwise 
occupy  part  of  our  present  territory.  Thus  our  citizens 
will  be  removed  to  the  immense  distance  of  two  or 
three  thousand  miles  from  the  Capital  of  the  Union, 
where    they  will    scarcely   ever   feel    the    rays  of   the 


50  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

General  Government;  their  affections  will  become 
alienated;  they  will  gradually  begin  to  view  us  as 
strangers;  they  will  begin  to  form  other  commercial 
connections,  and  our  interests  will  become  distinct. 

How  strangely  the  worthy  senators  anxiety — 
one  that  fairly  made  him  shudder — over  the  pos- 
sible, if  not  certain,  alienation  of  interest  and 
affection  on  the  part  of  the  trans-Mississippi 
settlers,  must  read  to  the  sturdy  American 
patriots  of  Kansas,  Nebraska,  or  Minnesota  to- 
day !  When  the  senator  was  speaking  so  alarm- 
ingly of  the  "two  or  three  thousand  miles*  dis- 
tance from  the  Capital  of  the  Union,"  he  had  no 
dream  whatsoever  of  the  iron  steed  that  would 
virtually  annihilate  distance;  or  of  the  sumptuous 
Pullman  coach  that  would  make  the  trip  from 
Denver  to  Washington  merely  a  pleasure  jaunt. 

Another  fear  that  disturbed  some  senatorial 
minds  was  that  the  people  of  Louisiana  at  the 
time  of  the  transfer  were  foreigners,  and  could 
not  possibly  be  transformed  into  loyal  American 
citizens.  It  was  gravely  urged  that  these  for- 
eigners were  too  ignorant  to  exercise  the  right 
of  election  with  wisdom,  and  too  turbulent  to 
enjoy  that  right  with  safety.  They  were,  it  was 
said,  incapable  of  appreciating  a  free  constitu- 
tion, if  it  should  be  given  them;  or  of  feeling  the 
deprivation,  if  it  should  be  denied  them. 

One  senator  was  particularly  exercised  over 
this  matter,  and  said  that  "the  principles  of  these 
people  [in  Louisiana]  are  probably  as  hostile  to 
our  Government,  in  its  true  construction,  as  they 


SENATORIAL    OBJECTIONS    AND    FEARS  5 1 

can  be;  and  the  relative  strength  which  this 
admission  [of  the  province]  gives  to  a  Southern 
and  Western  interest,  is  contradictory  to  the 
principles  of  our  original  Union  as  any  can  be, 
however  strongly  stated.'' 

Little  did  these  senators  realize  the  marvelous 
assimilative  powers  of  the  American  Republic, 
by  means  of  which  millions  of  foreigners  would 
in  time  be  made  over  into  thrifty  and  loyal 
American  citizens.  Whatever  problems  the 
incoming  of  the  foreigner  might  produce,  he 
would  be,  in  instances  innumerable,  a  real  source 
of  strength  to  the  land  in  which  he  should  found 
his  new  home. 

And  when,  in  days  to  come,  the  unity  of  the 
republic  would  be  endangered  by  civil  war,  it 
would  be  found  that  the  foreigner  was  among 
the  most  loyal  and  stalwart  defenders  of  the 
Union.  But  of  all  this — disclosed  only  by  his- 
toric developments — the  senatorial  mind  at  the 
beginning  of  the  last  century  was  oblivious. 

Another  fear  that  was  voiced  in  the  Senate 
was  that  if  the  United  States  should  acquire 
Louisiana,  she  would  in  all  probability  not  be 
able  to  hold  it  against  some  formidable  Euro- 
pean coalition.  Senator  Pickering  felt  confident 
that  France  and  Spain  would  in  the  course  of 
time  unite  their  forces  in  retaking  it. 

"One  honorable  gentleman  has  remarked/'  he 
said,  "that  the  French  Republic  is  bound  in 
honor  not  to  give  Spain  any  aid.  The  French 
Republic   bound  in   honor!     For  ten  or  fifteen 


52  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

years  past  we  have  known  too  well  what  are  the 
honor  and  the  justice  of  the  Government  of  that 
Republic.  Perhaps  Spain  may  not  resist  at  the 
present  moment.  She  may  wait  until  France 
gets  the  war  with  Britain  off  her  hands.  Then 
pretenses  will  be  easily  found  to  reclaim  Louisi- 
ana; and  Spain,  once  engaged  to  wrest  it  from 
us  by  force,  will  receive  from  France,  her  ally, 
all  necessary  aid." 

But  this  prophecy  was  fated  to  failure,  as  cer- 
tainly as  others.  Instead  of  France  and  Spain 
coming  more  closely  together,  they  grew  farther 
and  farther  apart,  and  within  five  years  were  in 
open  conflict.  Napoleon  deposed  Charles  IV., 
and  placed  his  brother  Joseph  on  the  Spanish 
throne. 

Thus,  neither  singly  nor  together,  did  France 
and  Spain  ever  attempt  the  re-conquest  of  Lou- 
isiana. It  has  safely  remained  American  terri- 
tory from  the  days  of  the  purchase  until  the 
present,  despite  all  senatorial  timidities  and 
prophecies.  And  it  has  witnessed  in  security 
all  the  mutations  of  European  politics,  and  the 
dynastic  changes  of  both  France  and  Spain. 


XII 

LOUISIANA   KNOCKS    FOR   ADMISSION 

THE  third  article  of  the  treaty  relating  to 
the  cession  of  Louisiana  to  the  United 
States  specified  that  "the  inhabitants  of  the 
ceded  territory  shall  be  incorporated  into  the 
Union  of  the  United  States,  and  admitted  as 
soon  as  possible,  according  to  the  principles  of 
the  Federal  Constitution,  to  the  enjoyment 
of  all  the  rights,  advantages,  and  immunities,  of 
citizens  of  the  United  States;  and  in  the  mean- 
time they  shall  be  protected  in  the  enjoyment 
of  their  liberty,  property,  and  the  exercise  of  the 
religion  they  profess." 

In  carrying  out  the  terms  of  this  article,  Con- 
gress proposed  to  erect  the  country  west  of  the 
Mississippi  and  south  of  the  thirty-third  degree 
into  a  territory  of  the  United  States,  to  be 
called  the  Territory  of  Orleans,  and  to  estab- 
lish therein  a  territorial  government.  This  was 
as  far  as  Congress  thought  it  wise  to  go  at  that 
time. 

But  the  people  of  Louisiana  were  strongly 
averse  to  the  idea  of  a  territorial  government 
for  them.  They  considered  themselves  worthy 
of  being  received  into  the  family  of  States.  So, 
in  1804,  they  sent  a  carefully-worded  and  respect- 
ful petition  to  Congress,  urging  their  claims  for 

53 


54  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

recognition  as  a  state.  This  petition  was  the 
work  of  Edward  Livingston,  a  recent  arrival  at 
New  Orleans. 

The  petitioners  reminded  Congress  of  the 
treaty  engagement  "to  incorporate  us  into  the 
Union,  and  admit  us  to  all  the  rights,  advantages, 
and  immunities  of  American  citizens."  They 
alluded  to  a  promise  made  them,  "that  you 
would  receive  us  as  brothers,  and  would  hasten 
to  extend  to  us  a  participation  in  those  invalua- 
ble rights  which  had  formed  the  basis  of  your 
unexampled  prosperity/' 

The  petitioners  then  presented  their  remon- 
strance in  the  following  words: 

The  inhabitants  of  the  ceded  territory  are  to  be 
' 'incorporated  into  the  Union  of  the  United  States." 
A  territory  governed  in  the  manner  proposed  may  be 
a  province  of  the  United  States,  but  can  by  no  con- 
struction be  said  to  be  incorporated  into  the  Union. 
To  be  incorporated  into  the  Union  must  mean  to  form 
a  part  of  it;  but  to  every  component  part  of  the 
United  States  the  Constitution  has  guaranteed  a  repub- 
lican form  of  government.  But  the  form  proposed,  as 
we  have  already  shown,  has  no  one  principle  of  repub- 
licanism in  its  composition.  It  is,  therefore,  not  a 
compliance  with  the  letter  of  the  Treaty,  and  is  totally 
inconsistent  with  its  spirit.   .   .   . 

If  any  doubt,  however,  could  possibly  arise  on  the 
first  member  of  the  sentence,  it  must  vanish  by  a  consid- 
eration of  the  second,  which  provides  for  their  admis- 
sion to  the  rights,  privileges,  and  immunities,  of  citizens 
of  the  United  States.  But  the  government  (territorial), 
as  we  have  shown,  is  totally  incompatible  with  those 


LOUISIANA    KNOCKS    FOR   ADMISSION  55 

rights.  Without  any  vote  in  the  election  of  our  Leg- 
islature, without  any  check  on  our  Executive,  without 
any  one  incident  of  self-government,  what  valuable 
"privilege"  of  citizenship  is  allowed  us,  what  "right" 
do  we  enjoy,  of  what  "immunity"  can  we  boast, 
except,  indeed,  the  degrading  exemption  from  the 
cares  of  legislation,  and  the  burden  of  public  affairs? 

It  appears  that  statements  prejudicial  to  the 
people  of  Louisiana  had  been  circulated  through- 
out the  republic,  and  the  petitioners  made  answer 
thus: 

As  to  the  degree  of  information  diffused  through 
the  country,  we  humbly  request  that  some  more  cor- 
rect evidence  may  be  produced,  than  the  superficial 
remarks  that  have  been  made  by  travelers  or  residents, 
who  neither  associate  with  us,  nor  speak  our  language. 
Many  of  us  are  native  citizens  of  the  United  States, 
who  have  participated  in  that  kind  of  knowledge  which 
is  there  spread  among  the  people;  the  others  generally 
are  men  who  will  not  suffer  by  a  comparison  with  the 
population  of  any  other  colony. 

And  then  they  close  their  petition,  with  the 
prayer  "that  prompt  and  efficacious  measures 
may  be  taken  to  incorporate  the  inhabitants  of 
Louisiana  into  the  Union  of  the  United  States, 
and  admit  them  to  all  the  rights,  privileges,  and 
immunities,  of  the  citizens  thereof." 

The  petition,  however,  failed  to  secure  a  favor- 
able answer  from  Congress  at  the  time,  although 
it  was  considered  an  able  presentation  of  the 
petitioners'  claims.  Congress  was  not  yet  ready 
to  found  any  trans-Mississippi  states.     The  fur- 


56  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

thest  it  thought  it  prudent  to  go  at  the  time  was 
to  organize  a  territory.  A  great  congressional 
battle  had  yet  to  be  fought  before  Louisiana 
could  be  endowed  with  statehood. 

But  on  the  ninth  anniversary  of  the  Treaty  of 
Paris,  April  30,  181 2,  Congress  opened  the  door, 
and  admitted  Louisiana  as  a  sovereign  state. 
The  long-delayed  prayer  at  last  was  answered. 


XIII 

LOUISIANA    INCREASES    HER    POPULATION 

WHEN  Louisiana  passed  into  American 
hands,  the  only  settlement  of  any  impor- 
tance was  in  and  about  New  Orleans.  Farther 
up  the  Mississippi  there  were  a  few  trading 
posts,  where  the  merchants  and  Indians  met  to 
exchange  their  wares  and  furs. 

But  it  was  not  long  before  little  settlements 
began  to  be  formed,  for  the  passage  of  the  great 
river  highway  was  now  unhindered.  Many 
adventurous  spirits  had  already  pushed  back 
from  the  Atlantic  Coast,  and  made  their  home 
along  the  east  bank  of  the  river.  And  when 
they  came  to  know  that  the  western  bank  was 
American  territory  as  well  as  the  eastern,  it  was 
an  easy  matter  to  cross  the  flood,  and  settle  on 
the  sunset  shore. 

The  first  ten  years  of  the  new  century  had 
witnessed  a  large  accession  to  the  population  of 
the  American  Republic.  By  i8iothe  population 
had  grown  to  7,240,000.  This  was  a  very  decided 
increase;  though  not  so  great  as  some  sanguine 
souls  had  expected,  and  the  prophets  foretold. 

One  of  the  chief  reasons  for  this  increase  was 
the  disturbed  and  distracted  condition  of  Europe. 
The  Napoleonic  wars  had  thrown  all  Europe 
into  a  ferment.     The  Emperor  of  France  had  at 

57 


58  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

first  thought  only  of  a  war  with  England.  But 
in  a  few  years  he  was  at  war  with  Europe.  His 
hand  was  against  every  man's  hand. 

This  widespread  and  protracted  warfare  led 
multitudes  to  seek  peace  and  plenty  in  America. 
To  stay  in  Europe  fated  them  to  insufferable 
taxation  and  poverty,  as  well  as  to  possible  con- 
scription. And  America  seemed  to  them  a  land 
of  promise,  as  well  as  a  land  of  refuge. 

When  they  arrived,  they  found  the  seaboard 
tolerably  well  settled.  So,  when  they  heard  of 
the  new  land  to  the  west,  they  were  strongly 
moved  to  continue  their  journey  to  it.  The 
newcomer  was  not  averse  to  a  new  land.  So 
Louisiana  gradually  began  to  share  in  the  large 
immigration,  and  little  settlements  began  to  be 
formed  along  the  western  tributaries  of  the  Mis- 
sissippi. 

Some  of  the  most  thoughtful  men  in  the  coun- 
try deprecated  this  emigration  westward.  They 
were  afraid  that  it  would  reduce  the  Atlantic 
States  to  insignificance,  and  endanger  the  per- 
manence of  the  Union.  They  loved  the  "rocks 
and  rills,"  the  "woods  and  templed  hills"  of  the 
East,  and  were  somewhat  timid  over  the  move- 
ment toward  the  rich  prairies  and  abundant 
water  courses  of  the  new  West.  By  kindly  per- 
suasion they  sought  to  keep  their  neighbors 
from  becoming  pioneers  in  the  new  province.* 
But  they  found  that  neither  their  fears  nor  their 

*A  Virginia  senator  said:  "This  Eden  of  the  New  World 
will  prove  a  cemetery  for  the  bodies  of  our  citizens." 


LOUISIANA    INCREASES    HER    POPULATION         59 

persuasions  could  stay  the  steady  movement 
westward. 

Another  thing  that  greatly  accelerated  the 
settlement  of  Louisiana  was  the  invention  of  the 
steamboat.  In  the  summer  of  1807  Robert  Ful- 
ton in  his  steamboat  Clermont  made  the  trip 
from  New  York  to  Albany  in  thirty-two  hours, 
and  the  return  trip  in  thirty.  The  experiment 
was  declared  impracticable  before  it  was  made, 
and  ridiculed  as  useless  afterward;  yet  it  was  a 
pronounced  success. 

"The  morning  I  left  New  York,"  wrote  Fulton, 
"there  were  not,  perhaps,  thirty  persons  in  the 
city  who  believed  the  boat  would  ever  move  one 
mile  an  hour/'  But  it  did  move  five  miles  an 
hour. 

Fulton's  invention  was  bound  to  revolutionize 
travel.  What  had  been  done  on  the  Hudson 
could  be  done  on  the  Tennessee  and  the  Missis- 
sippi. By  181 1  a  stern-wheel  steamboat  was 
navigating  the  waters  of  the  Ohio.  This  vessel 
—the  Orleans — was  built  at  Pittsburgh  by  Fulton 
and  Livingston.  From  this  time  on,  the  steam- 
navigation  of  the  western  streams  increased 
rapidly.  And  the  Province  of  Louisiana  did  not 
seem  nearly  so  far  away  as  when  intending  set- 
tlers had  had  to  traverse  the  leagues  of  almost 
pathless  forest,  or  commit  themselves  Nto  the 
cramped  and  uncertain  canoe. 

Exploration  of  the  new  territory  was  constantly 
furthered  by  President  Jefferson.  The  United 
States  was  determined  to  know  something  of  its 


60  THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

purchase.  Up  to  1804,  the  only  part  of  Louisi- 
ana of  which  there  was  any  certain  knowledge 
was  the  extreme  southern  section.  But  Jeffer- 
son resolved  to  know  about  the  northern  part  as 
well,  for  Louisiana  in  that  direction  reached  to 
the  British  possessions.  So  in  1804  he  commis- 
sioned two  officers  of  the  army — Meriwether 
Lewis  and  William  Clarke — to  explore  the 
waters  of  the  Missouri. 

With  a  large  party,  Lewis  and  Clarke  em- 
barked on  a  considerable  flotilla  of  boats,  and 
stemmed  the  rapid  current  of  the  Missouri  for 
2,600  miles.  Their  surveys  extended  over  two 
years,  when  they  left  their  boats,  crossed  the 
mountains,  and  found  their  way  by  the  Columbia 
River  to  the  Pacific. 

The  information  secured  by  this  band  of 
explorers  was  promptly  despatched  to  Washing- 
ton, and  was  an  important  addition  to  the  knowl- 
edge of  the  territory.  And  as  their  reports 
became  known,  adventurous  settlers  began  to 
find  their  way  to  the  new  northern  region,  and 
create  communities  at  advantageous  points  along 
the  swift-coursing  rivers. 


XIV 

AARON    BURR    AND    LOUISIANA 

JUST  what  was  in  Burr's  mind,  when  he  pro- 
jected his  ill-starred  movement  to  the 
region  of  Louisiana,  has  never  yet  been 
agreed  upon  by  our  historians.  It  is  not  at  all 
unlikely  that  his  motives  were  as  chaotic  to  him- 
self as  they  seem  to  the  historians  after  a  lapse 
of  nearly  a  century.  The  time  was  full  of 
adventures;  and  he  was  one  of  the  adventurers. 
Without  doubt,  Burr  was  a  vainglorious  and 
visionary  man.  But  his  chief  ambitions,  which 
he  had  passionately  cherished,  were  ruthlessly 
shattered.  He  had  sought  the  Presidency,  but, 
when  it  seemed  just  within  his  reach,  Jefferson 
had  secured  the  coveted  prize.  A  bitter  polit- 
ical quarrel  had  led  him  to  mortal  combat  with 
Hamilton,  and  Hamilton  was  killed.  Public 
opinion  was  against  Burr,  and  the  more  the  duel 
was  discussed,  the  more  incensed  a  large  por- 
tion of  the  people  became.  Efforts  were  made 
to  have  him  indicted  for  murder.  He  was  also 
heavily  in  debt.  He  had  been  compelled  to  part 
with  his  residence  in  New  York,  but  this  by  no 
means  met  his  incumbrances.  He  did  not  dare 
to  visit  the  metropolis,  lest  he  be  imprisoned  for 
debt. 
At  this  crisis  of  his  affairs— with  his  political 

61 


62  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

aspirations  wrecked,  and  homeless  and  bankrupt 
— the  vision  of  the  West,  and  of  the  possible 
retrieval  of  his  fortunes  there,  came  to  him.  If 
the  door  of  opportunity  was  closed  to  him  in  the 
East,  why  might  not  another  door,  even  more 
spacious,  be  opened  to  him  in  the  West?  With 
the  settlement  of  these  remote  sections  some- 
men  would  be  sure  to  achieve  prominence  and 
possibly  glory;  why  not  he? 

Whatever  his  dominant  thought,  he  set  out 
for  the  West,  where  he  began  to  make  acquaint- 
ances, and  propound  his  schemes.  He  found 
Harman  Blennerhassett  at  his  island  home  in 
the  Ohio,  and  secured  his  willing  cooperation. 
He  met  Andrew  Jackson  and  Henry  Clay,  and 
secured  them  as  his  partisans.  He  entered  into 
a  lengthy  correspondence — conducted  by  cipher 
— with  General  Wilkinson,  then  military  gov- 
ernor at  New  Orleans,  and  for  a  time  possessed 
himself  of  his  favor. 

And  he  gathered  about  him  a  small  body  of 
adventurous  men,  whom  he  drilled  for  military 
service,  though  he  did  not  disclose  to  them  his 
military  intentions.  He  led  them  on  an  expedi- 
tion down  the  Mississippi  as  far  as  Natchez;  but 
learning  at  this  point  that  Wilkinson  had 
betrayed  him,  and  that  Jefferson  had  issued  a 
proclamation  against  him,  he  disbanded  the 
expedition,  and  became,  himself,  a  fugitive. 

Burr  has  been  credited  with  several  ambitions 
in  this  western  adventure.  One  theory  is  that 
he  was  irritated  by  the  Spanish  dons,  many  of 


AARON    BURR    AND    LOUISIANA  63 

whom  remained  in  the  vicinity  of  New  Orleans, 
and  were  obnoxious  to  the  English-speaking 
residents,  and  he  was  resolved  upon  clearing 
Louisiana  of  the  Spaniards.  Another  is  that  he 
meditated  the  capture  of  Texas  and  Mexico 
from  the  Spaniards,  the  setting  up  of  a  vast 
empire  in  Mexico,  and  making  his  daughter 
Theodosia — who  accompanied  him — the  Mexi- 
can empress.  Yet  another  theory,  and  perhaps 
the  most  plausible,  is  that  he  aspired  to  set  up 
an  independent  government  in  the  Province  of 
Louisiana,  with  New  Orleans  as  the  center  of 
administration.  Of  the  feasibility  of  establish- 
ing a  Western  Empire  in  the  Mississippi  Valley 
he  had  freely  spoken  with  his  friends.  And  it 
maybe  it  was  this  that  led  him  to  correspond 
with  Wilkinson,  who  at  the  time  was  commander 
of  the  United  States  forces  at  New  Orleans. 

There  is  no  doubt  of  Burr's  antipathy  to  Jeffer- 
son, his  political  rival,  and  to  the  Virginian 
coterie  that  seemed  to  keep  its  hold  on  the 
national  government.  At  his  trial,  witnesses 
testified  that  Burr  had  asserted  it  would  be  an 
easy  matter  for  a  few  determined  men  to  over- 
throw the  government  at  Washington.  But  this 
testimony  is  generally  discredited  by  historians, 
who  agree  in  the  thought  that  while  Burr  may 
have  dreamed  of  a  possible  empire  in  the  Prov- 
ince of  Louisiana,  it  was  to  be  only  the  rival, 
and  not  the  destroyer,  of  the  national  authority 
at  Washington. 

And  yet  it  was  for  treason,  as  well  as  misde- 


64  THE    LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

meanor,  that  Burr  and  Blennerhassett  were  tried 
in  Richmond,  in  1807.  Jefferson  undoubtedly 
considered  Burr's  adventure  as  distinctly  trea- 
sonable, and  believed  that  Burr  had  aimed  at 
Louisiana  rather  than  at  the  possessions  of 
Spain.  And  the  President  sought  Burr's  con- 
viction on  this  charge,  directing  the  prosecution 
at  Richmond  by  frequent  letters  from  Wash- 
ington. 

To  the  intense  vexation  of  the  President,  how- 
ever, the  first  trial  collapsed;  the  Chief-Justice 
ruling  that  no  overt  act  of  treason  had  been 
proved  against  Burr,  such  as  is  required  by  the 
Constitution.  Burr's  trial  for  misdemeanor  was 
spun  out  for  a  time,  but  he  was  acquitted  on  the 
ground  that  he  ought  to  be  tried  in  Ohio,  where 
the  misdemeanor  was  committed.  Burr  was 
bailed  to  appear  for  trial  in  Ohio,  but  the  case 
never  was  prosecuted  by  the  courts  of  that 
state. 

Burr  almost  immediately  went  to  England — a 
thoroughly  discredited,  though  acquitted,  man. 
And  Louisiana,  relieved  by  the  collapse  of  Burr's 
adventure,  moved  forward  in  lines  of  peaceful 
development. 


XV 


JOSIAH    QUINCY  S    THREATS    OF    SECESSION 

AS  alluded  to  previously,  the  inhabitants  of 
Louisiana  petitioned  Congress  in  1804  that 
the  recently  acquired  province  might  be  received 
into  the  family  of  States.  But  all  that  Congress 
would  do  at  the  time  was  to  accept  it  as  a  terri- 
tory— the  Territory  of  Orleans — and  equip  it  with 
a  territorial  government. 

So  matters  ran  along  until  181 1,  when  a  strenu- 
ous attempt  was  made  to  admit  the  territory  as 
a  state.  The  majority  of  Congress  by  this  time 
was  favorable  to  such  action;  but  there  was  a 
hopeless  though  ardent  minority  of  Extreme 
Federalists  resolutely  opposed  to  it.  Of  this 
minority,  Josiah  Quincy  of  Massachusetts  was  a 
conspicuous  member,  and  a  leading  and  brilliant 
exponent  of  its  views. 

In  the  session  of  181 1  Mr.  Quincy  made  a 
speech — and  perhaps  his  most  famous  speech — 
in  opposition  to  the  admission  of  Louisiana, 
some  portions  of  which  seem  little  less  than  ludi- 
crous to  the  America  of  to-day.  He  opened  his 
remarks  by  saying: 

I  am  compelled  to  declare  it  as  my  deliberate  opin- 
ion, that,  if  this  bill  passes,  the  bonds  of  this  Union 
.are  virtually  dissolved;  that  the  states  which  compose 
it  are  free  from  their  moral  obligations;  and  that  as  it 

65 


66  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

will  be  the  right  of  all,  so  it  will  be  the  duty  of  some 
to  prepare  definitely  for  a  separation;  amicably,  if  they 
can;  violently,  if  they  must. 

"But,"  says  the  gentleman  from  Tennessee,  "these 
people  have  been  seven  years  citizens  of  the  United 
States."  I  deny  it,  sir.  As  citizens  of  New  Orleans, 
or  of  Louisiana,  they  never  have  been,  and  by  the 
mode  proposed  they  never  will  be,  citizens  of  the 
United  States.  They  may  be  girt  upon  us  for  a 
moment,  but  no  real  cement  can  grow  from  such  an 
association. 

'  "But,"  the  gentleman  adds,  "what  shall  we  do,  if 
we  do  not  admit  the  people  of  Louisiana  into  our 
Union?  Our  children  are  settling  that  country."  Sir, 
it  is  no  concern  of  mine  what  he  does.  Because  his 
children  have  run  wild  and  uncovered  into  the  woods, 
is  that  a  reason  for  him  to  break  into  my  house,  or  the 
houses  of  my  friends,  to  filch  our  children's  clothes, 
in  order  to  cover  his  children's  nakedness?  This  Con- 
stitution never  was,  and  never  can  be,  strained  to  lap 
over  all  the  wilderness  of  the  West,  without  essentially 
affecting  both  the  rights  and  convenience  of  its  real 
proprietors.  It  was  never  constructed  to  form  a  cov- 
ering for  the  inhabitants  of  the  Missouri  and  the  Red 
River  country.  And  whenever  it  is  attempted  to  be 
stretched  over  them,  it  will  rend  asunder. 
*  Now  who  believes,  who  dare  assert,  that  it  was  the 
intention  of  the  people,  when  they  adopted  this  Con- 
stitution, to  assign  eventually  to  New  Orleans  and 
Louisiana  a  portion  of  their  political  power;  and  to 
invest  all  the  people  those  extensive  regions  might 
hereafter  contain  with  an  authority  over  themselves 
and  their  descendants? 

Do  you  suppose  the  people  of  the  Northern  and 
Atlantic  States  will,  or  ought  to,  look   with  patience 


JOSIAH    QUINCY'S    THREATS    OF    SECESSION        67 

and  see  representatives  and  senators  from  the  Rrd 
River  and  Missouri  pouring  themselves  upon  this  and 
the  other  floor;  managing  the  concerns  of  a  seaboard 
fifteen  hundred  miles,  at  least,  from  their  residence; 
and  having  a  preponderancy   in   councils,   into  which 


THE    FATHER    OF    WATERS    IN    THE   NORTH 
Courtesy  of  Great  Northern  Railway 


constitutionally  they  could  never  have  been  admitted  ? 
I  have  no  hesitation  upon  this  point.  They  neither 
will  see  it,  nor  ought  to  see  it,  with  content.  It  is  the 
part  of  a  wise  man  to  foresee  danger  and  to  hide  him- 
self. This  great  usurpation,  which  creeps  into  this 
House,  under  the  plausible  appearance  of  giving  con- 


68  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

tent  to  that  important  point  —New  Orleans — starts  up 
a  gigantic  power  to  control  the  nation.  Upon  the 
actual  condition  of  things,  there  is,  there  can  be,  no 
need  of  concealment.  It  is  apparent  to  the  blindest 
vision. 

By  the  course  of  nature,  and  conformable  to  the 
acknowledged  principles  of  the  Constitution,  the 
scepter  of  power  in  this  country  is  passing  toward 
the  Northwest.  Sir,  there  is  to  this  no  objection.  The 
right  belongs  to  that  quarter  of  the  country.  Enjoy 
it;  it  is  yours.  Use  the  powers  granted,  as  you  please. 
But  take  care,  in  your  haste  after  effectual  dominion, 
not  to  overload  the  scale  by  heaping  it  with  these  new 
acquisitions.  Grasp  not  too  eagerly  at  your  purpose. 
In  your  speed  after  uncontrolled  sway,  trample  not 
down  this  Constitution. 

Already  the  old  states  sink  in  the  estimation  of 
members,  when  brought  into  comparison  with  these 
new  countries.  We  have  been  told  that  "New  Orleans 
was  the  most  important  point  in  the  Union."  A  place 
out  of  the  Union  the  most  important  place  within  it! 
We  have  been  asked,  "What  are  some  of  the  small 
states,  when  compared  with  the  Mississippi  Territory?" 
The  gentleman  from  that  territory  spoke  the  other  day 
of  the  Mississippi,  as  "of  a  highroad  between" — good 
heavens!  between  what,  Mr.  Speaker?  Why,  "the 
Eastern  and  Western  States."  So  that  all  the  north- 
western territories,  all  the  countries,  once  the  extreme 
western  boundary  of  our  Union,  are  hereafter  to  be 
denominated  "Eastern  States".  .  .  There  is  no  limit 
to  men's  imaginations  on  this  subject,  short  of  Califor- 
nia and  the  Columbia  River! 

In  closing  his  speech,  Mr.  Quincy  said: 

I  oppose   this  bill   from   no  animosity  to  the  people 


JOSIAH    QUINCY's    THREATS    OF   SECESSION        6q 

of  New  Orleans,  but  from  the  deep  conviction  that  it 
contains  a  principle  incompatible  with  the  liberties 
and  safety  of  my  country.  I  have  no  concealment  of 
my  opinion.  The  bill,  if  it  passes,  is  a  death-blow  to 
the  Constitution.  It  may  afterward  linger;  but,  linger- 
ing, its  fate  will  at  no  very  distant  period  be  consum- 
mated. 

Mr.  Quincy's  address  on  the  perils  surely 
attendant  on  national  expansion  may  fairly  be 
considered  as  the  swan-song  of  the  expiring 
Federalist  party.  Within  a  few  months  of  its 
deliverance  the  Territory  of  Orleans  became  the 
State  of  Louisiana.  And  its  admission  made  it 
easy  for  other  sections  west  of  the  Mississippi  to 
find  their  way  into  the  Union,  as  they  became 
ready  for  statehood.  And  notwithstanding  the 
gloomy  prophecies  regarding  the  danger  to  the 
Constitution,  that  document  abides  undestroyed 
to  the  present  hour. 


XVI  . 

THE  BATTLE  OF  NEW  ORLEANS 

ONE  conflict  remained  before  the  region  of 
the  Louisiana  Purchase  could  rest  securely 
in  American  hands.  It  was  a  brief  and  spirited 
conflict;  but  gloriously  decisive.  It  was  the 
Battle  of  New  Orleans. 

Louisiana  had  been  admitted  as  a  state  on  the 
last  day  of  April,  1812.  And  in  the  June  follow- 
ing Congress  declared  war  against  England. 
The  war  continued,  with  varying  fortunes  to 
either  of  the  combatants,  for  nearly  three  years, 
when  it  was  ended  by  the  Treaty  of  Ghent. 

This  treaty  was  signed  and  sealed  a  full  fort- 
night before  the  Battle  of  New  Orleans  was 
fought.  But  the  news  of  the  cessation  of  hostil- 
ities had  as  yet  reached  neither  General  Jackson, 
the  American  commander  at  New  Orleans,  nor 
General  Pakenham,  commander  of  the  British 
forces. 

The  British  had  up  to  this  time  spent  their 
energies  in  attacking  the  Union  along  the 
Atlantic  seaboard  and  the  Canadian  frontier. 
But  toward  the  close  of  1814  they  turned  their 
attention  to  the  Gulf  settlements,  and  notably 
to  New  Orleans.  They  were  moved  to  this 
attack  because  of  the  strategic  position  this  city 

occupied,  as  the  key  to  the  Mississippi. 

70 


THE  BATTLE  OF  NEW  ORLEANS        Jl 

Gleig,  an  officer  in  the  expedition,  after 
describing  the  Mississippi  and  its  tributaries  in  his 
despatches  to  England,  wrote:  "Whatever 
nation,  therefore,  chances  to  possess  this  place 
[New  Orleans],  possesses  in  reality  the  com- 
mand of  a  greater  extent  of  country  than  is 
included  within  the  boundary-line  of  the  whole 
United  States." 

And  the  London  Times  announced  that  "Most 
active  measures  are  pursuing  for  detaching  from 
the  dominion  of  the  enemy  an  important  part  of 
his  territory." 

So  Pakenham's  campaign  seems  to  have  been 
undertaken  not  simply  to  capture  New  Orleans, 
but  to  secure  the  vast  section  of  the  Louisiana 
Purchase  as  well.  With  Canada  on  the  north, 
and  Louisiana  on  the  west,  the  American 
Republic  would  have  been  walled  about  by 
British  territory. 

It  was  late  in  December,  1814,  that  the  British 
military  and  naval  forces  appeared  off  New 
Orleans.  The  American  gunboats  in  Lake 
Borgne  were  easily  captured,  and  the  British 
landed  twenty-four  hundred  men  nine  miles 
below  the  city.  General  Jackson  went  out  to 
meet  the  invading  force  with  about  two  thous- 
and men — militiamen  from  Kentucky  and  Ten- 
nessee as  well  as  from  Louisiana,  free  negroes, 
enrolled  convicts,  and  the  semi-piratical  fol- 
lowers of  the  famous  Lafitte. 

The  first  skirmish  was  toward  the  evening  of 
December  2d,    The  fight  continued  about  three 


72  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

hours,  during  which  more  than  two  hundred  men 
on  either  side  were  killed  or  wounded.  The 
Americans  withdrew  to  their  fortifications,  four 
miles  from  the  city. 

General   Pakenham — a  brother-in-law  of    the 
Duke  of  Wellington — being  strongly  reinforced, 


COURT    OF   AN    OLD    NEW    ORLEANS    MANSION 

made  his  next  attack  on  New  Year's  morning. 
The  British  had  erected  bastions  of  hogsheads 
of  sugar,  while  cotton  bales  furnished  protection 
to  the  Americans.  The  hogsheads  were  easily 
broken  up  by  the  cannonshet,  while  the  cotton 


THE  BATTLE  OF  NEW  ORLEANS        73 

bales  were  set  on  fire  and  consumed.  The  day 
ended  by  the  Americans  withdrawing  to  their 
earthworks,  a  mile  and  a  half  in  the  rear. 

Early  on  the  morning  of  January  8,  1815,  the 
British  made  their  most  determined,  and  final, 
attack.  The  Americans  fought  with  such  bravery 
that  they  held  their  foes  in  check.  Not  even 
the  onset  of  the  Highlanders  disconcerted  them 
for  a  moment.  Nine  British  officers  were  killed 
in  the  assault,  of  whom  two  were  generals — 
Pakenham,  the  commander,  and  Gibbs — while 
General  Keene  was  seriously  wounded. 

It  was  a  glorious  victory  for  the  Americans. 
The  action  lasted  but  a  short  half-hour;  but  in 
that  brief  time  the  British  had  lost  700  in  killed, 
1,400  in  wounded,  and  500  prisoners.  The 
American  loss  was  only  17. 

Thoroughly  disheartened  by  the  disasters  that 
had  overtaken  the  enterprise,  General  Lambert 
— on  whom  the  command  fell  after  Pakenham's 
death — abandoned  it,  and  withdrew  the  small 
remnant  of  the  army  to  his  ships,  only  to  learn 
almost  immediately  that  peace  between  the 
belligerents  had  been  concluded  some  weeks 
before. 

The  victory  of  the  Americans  proved  that  even 
raw  militia  were  more  than  a  match  for  the  best 
veteran  troops  of  Europe;  while  it  covered  their 
doughty  leader  with  glory,  and  paved  the  way 
for  his  reaching,  a  few  years  after,  the  Presi- 
dential chair. 


PART  II 


CJje  iLoutstana  $urcfw8e 


75 


XVII 

SOME    STATISTICS    OF   THE    PURCHASE 

THE  United  States  Treasury  Bureau  of  Sta- 
tistics computes  the  total  land  and  water 
area  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  as  875,025  square 
miles.  This  is  only  a  little  less  than  the  com- 
bined areas  of  Great  Britain,  the  .Netherlands, 
Belgium,  Germany,  France,  Spain,  Italy,  and 
Switzerland. 

The  total  land  area  of  the  original  Thirteen 
States  was  820,944  square  miles.  Deducting  the 
10,081  square  miles  of  water  area  from  the  total 
area  of  the  Purchase,  there  remain  864,944 
square  miles  of  land  area,  or  44,000  square 
miles  more  than 'in  the  original  States.  JThe 
area  of  the  United  States  was  more  than  doubled 
by  the  Louisiana  Purchase. 

Fourteen  states  and  territories  have  been 
created  in  whole  or  in  part  out  of  the  purchased 
province.     They  are,  in  alphabetical  order, 

Arkansas.^ 

Colorado.  < 

Iowa. 

Kansas. 

Louisiana.  ^ 

Minnesota. 

Missouri. 

Montana.  ^ 

77 


78  THE    LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

Nebraska. 
North  Dakota. 
South  Dakota. 
Wyoming. 
Indian  Territory. 
P    Oklahoma.  -..-,. 

Taking  the  area  of  the  six  New  I  England 
States — 66,000  square  miles — as  a  measure,  the 
following  striking  facts  appear: 

The  State  of  Louisiana  is  three-fourths  as 
large  as  New  England.  Iowa  is  a  little  more 
than  five-sixths  as  large,  and  Arkansas  approx- 
imately the  same.  Missouri  is  a  little  larger 
than  New  England. 

Indian  Territory  and  Oklahoma  combined  are 
as  large  as  New  England  with  another  Connec- 
ticut thrown  in.  The  same  is  true  of  North 
Dakota. 

Another  Vermont  and  Rhode  Island  must  be 
added  to  New  England  to  make  up  the  area  of 
South  Dakota,  or  Nebraska. 

Minnesota  and  Kansas  are  each  one-and-a- 
quarter  times  the  size  of  New  England;  while 
Wyoming  and  Colorado  are  each  one-and-a-half 
times  as  large. 

Montana  is  twice  as  large  as  New  England 
with  another  New  Hampshire  and  Connecticut 
added. 

The  area  of  the  twelve  states  and  two  territo- 
ries to-day  made  up  in  whole  or  in  part  from  the 
Purchase  is  very  nearly  as  great  as  Sixteen  New 
Englands. 


SOME    STATISTICS    OF   THE    PURCHASE  7Q 

At  the  time  that  the  Province  of  Louisiana 
came  into  American  hands,  it  had  a  population 
of  less  than  100,000.  In  1900,  the  population  of 
the  twelve  states  and  two  territories  was 
14,708,616,  or  about  one-fifth  of  the  population 
of  the  entire  country. 

As  stated  before,  the  area  of  these  states  and 
territories  equals,  or  very  nearly  equals,  that  of 
eight  countries  of  Europe,  the  names  of  which 
were  given.  But  while  the  present  population 
of  the  area  included  in  the  Purchase  is  14, 708,616, 
the  population  of  these  European  countries  is 
202,363,573,  or  nearly  fourteen  times  as  great  as 
that  of  the  Purchase. 

Judged  by  the  European  density  of  popula- 
tion, the  area  of  the  Purchase  is  not,  as  yet, 
unduly  crowded. 


XVIII 


LOUISIANA 


LA  BELLE  LOUISIANE"  was  the  first 
state  within  the  limits  of  the  purchased 
province  to  be  admitted  to  the  Union. 

It  was  endowed  with  statehood  on  April  30, 
181 2,  the  ninth  anniversary  of  the  day  when  the 
treaty  of  transfer  was  signed  and  sealed.  The 
signature  of  President  Madison  was  on  its  papers 
of  admission. 

Louisiana's  area  of  48,720  square  miles  is 
divided  between  low  swamp  lands  overflowed 
by  the  tidal  waters  of  the  numerous  bayous  and 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico;  prairie  stretches,  among 
whose  rich  grasses  immense  herds  of  cattle  roam 
and  fatten;  and  rolling  uplands,  where  the  long- 
leaved  or  short-leaved  pine,  and  the  umbrageous 
oak  grow  in  abundance. 

Large  and  flourishing  rice  farms  are  found  in 
the  swamp  sections,  farms  that  it  is  believed  will 
be  able  in  a  few  years  to  supply  the  rice  markets 
of  the  world. 

By  the  proper  irrigation  of  this  section,  and 
by  the  introduction  of  machinery  to  harvest  the 
rice,  and  thresh  and  polish  it  in  the  mills,  large 
tracts  of  land  that  once  were  practically  value- 
less have  been  made  worth  from  $50  to  $100  an 

acre. 

80 


LOUISIANA 


81 


Up  to  1885,  Louisiana  was  raising  no  commer- 
cial rice.  Her  limited  product  was  consumed 
within  her  own  borders.  But  in  1900  it  required 
8,000   cars,  with    a   carrying   capacity  of  20,000 


A    COTTON   WHARF    AT   NEW   ORLEANS 


pounds  each,  to  convey  her  rice  crop  to  the  chief 
trade  centers. 

In  the  prairie  region  are  fine  ranches  for 
cattle,  which  are  being  raised  in  ever-increasing 
numbers,  and  require  no  shelter  against  winter 
storms,  for  perpetual  summer  is  there. 

Land-improvement    companies    have    by  the 


82  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

use  of  dikes  recovered  much  fertile  land 
from  the  shores  of  the  bayous.  This  re- 
claimed land  produces  the  finest  crops  of  cot- 
ton, sugar-cane,  and  corn.  Millions  of  dollars 
have  been  expended  on  the  dikes  and  levees  of 
the  state. 

Louisiana  has  a  perpetual  water  problem. 
She  has  3,782  miles  of  navigable  waters  in  her 
rivers  and  bayous,  besides  several  large  navi- 
gable lakes,  such  as  Pontchartrain,  Borgne,  and 
Grand.  The  Father  of  Waters  keeps  the 
sentinel  and  the  laborer  busy  at  their  post  of 
duty  on  the  levees. 

A  sub-tropical  climate  makes  Louisiana  an 
important  fruit  state.  Oranges  and  other 
citrous  fruits  abound.  Figs  grow  well,  as  do, 
also,  bananas  and  pineapples. 

The  orange  groves  are  vocal  with  the  sweet 
chords  of  the  southern  mocking-bird.  Flowers 
of  richest  beauty  and  fragrance  are  everywhere. 
Roses,  jasmines,  camellias,  oleanders,  and  mag- 
nolias fill  both  garden  and  plain.  The  magnolia 
is  the  state  flower. 

The  agricultural  staples  of  Louisiana  are 
sugar,  cotton,  rice,  corn,  and  tobacco.  The  sugar 
production  of  1898  was  $35,600,000;  of  cotton, 
$21,000,000;  of  corn,  hay,  and  oats,  $30,000,000; 
and  of  rice,  $3,000,000. 

The  County  of  East  Carroll  produces  the 
largest  yield  of  cotton  to  the  acre  of  any  land  in 
the  world.  The  famous  Perique  tobacco  is 
grown  nowhere  else  than  in  Louisiana. 


LOUISIANA  83 

Nearly  three-fifths  of  the  state  is  yet  clad  in 
forests,  which  are  estimated  to  contain  forty 
billion  feet  of  pine  and  oak  timber,  and  ten 
billion  feet  of  cypress  along  the  Atchafalaya. 

The  tenebrous  boughs  of  the  cypress 
Meet  in  a  dusky  arch,  and  trailing  mosses  in  mid-air 
Wave  like  banners  that  hang  on  the  walls  of  ancient 
cathedrals. 

Great  railway  systems  give  the  state  easy 
access  to  the  markets  of  her  sister  states.  At 
the  levees  of  New  Orleans  large  ocean  steamships 
take  on  cargoes,  of  cotton  for  the  factories  across 
the  sea.  The  Mississippi  River  trade  with  New 
Orleans  is  still  very  large,  even  though  the 
river  is  paralleled  by  trunk  railway  .lines. 

Louisiana's  population  of  1,381,625  is  widely 
dispersed  throughout  the  various  "parishes,"  as 
they  are  called,  instead  of  being  crowded  into 
cities.  The  state  has  only  three  cities  with  a 
population  of  more  than  10,000.  Baton  Rouge, 
the  capital,  has  only  11,000,  and  Shreveport 
16,000.  New  Orleans,  with  287,000,  is  the  only 
large  city.  # 

The  people  of  the  state  represent  several 
races.  The  colored  race  is  in  evidence  every- 
where. In  nearly  all  the  rural  parishes  it  is  in 
the  majority.  In  some  of  the  northern  parishes 
it  exceeds  the  white  race  ten  to  one. 

The  white  race  predominates  in  New  Orleans, 
but  there  the  citizens  of  French  descent  are  as 
numerous  as  Americans.     There  are  decidedly 


84 


THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 


French  quarters  in  the  city,  and  a  large  French 
market,   in   both   of  which   the   visitor  will    get 
many  a  hint  of  the  language  and  the  manners  of 
the  days  before  Louisiana  became  American. 
Certainly,  in  no  part  of  the  Union  has  France 


i-4l .   i  *      Wfii 


MISSISSIPPI    RIVER    BOATS,    NEW    ORLEANS 


left  so  many  footprints  of  her  early  occupation 
as  in  Louisiana.  Twenty-five  of  her  fifty-eight 
counties  retain  their  French  names. 

In  four  counties  there  are  descendants  of  the 
Acadians,  who  found  their  way  there  upon 
their  expulsion  from   Nova  Scotia.     They  cling 


LOUISIANA  85 

to  the  French  tongue,  and  retain  many  of  the 
simple  and  artless  customs  that  Longfellow 
praises  in  his  "Evangeline."  In  southern  Loui- 
siana French  is  the  predominant  language. 

The  name  of  the  state  is  French,  as  is  also 
that  of  its  leading  city.  And  wherever  one 
turns,  he  is  sure  to  meet  some  name  that  reminds 
him  of  France — some  Thibodeaux,  or  Plaque- 
mines, or  Terrebonne,  or  Bienville,  or  Pontchar- 
train,  or  Feliciana. 

Louisiana  passed  out  of  the  hands  of  France  a 
full  century  ago,  but  American  possession  and 
occupation  have  not  been  able  yet  to  change  the 
manners  or  the  language  of  those  who  are  chil- 
dren of  the  old  colonists.  The  flag  of  the  Bour- 
bons, and  its  successor,  the  tricolor,  have  been 
lowered  long  since;  but  the  speech  and  customs 
of  the  Bourbons  remain  to  the  present  hour  unal- 
tered by  the  change  of  ownership. 

Louisiana  gives  careful  attention  to  educa- 
tion. Public  schools  for  white  pupils,  and  sepa- 
rate schools  for  colored  youth,  are  found  in 
every  city,  town,  and  parish.  The  high  schools 
are  many,  and  of  a  good  grade. 

The  State  Normal  School  is  at  Natchitoches, 
and  there  is  also  a  Normal  School  at  New 
Orleans. 

The  State  University  is  at  Baton  Rouge,  as 
is  also  the  Agricultural  and  Mechanical  Col- 
lege. The  Louisiana  Industrial  Institute  is  at 
Ruston. 

Tulane  University,  and  Mount  Lebanon  Uni- 


86  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

versity,  while  not  state  institutions,  are  valuable 
assistants  to  the  cause  of  higher  education,  as 
are  also  several  other  colleges  and  academies 
maintained  by  the  various  religious  denomina- 
tions. 


XIX 


MISSOURI 


MISSOURI  was  the  second  state  admit- 
ted to  the  Union  from  the  Province  of 
Louisiana. 

The  same  year  that  Louisiana  became  a  state 
(1812)  Missouri  was  organized  as  a  territory. 
By  1818,  however,  she  thought  herself  entitled 
to  statehood,  and  made  her  application  to  Con- 
gress for  admission. 

But  Congress  kept  her  on  the  waiting  list  for 
three  full  years.  A  very  grave  question  arose 
in  connection  with  her  application  that  must 
first  be  settled. 

This  question  was  whether  the  Union  would 
or  would  not  sanction  the  extension  of  slavery 
into  the  new  states  to  be  formed  in  the  Province 
of  Louisiana.  The  State  of  Louisiana  had  been 
received  as  a  slave  state,  although  there  was  a 
strong  minority  in  Congress  that  had  protested 
earnestly  against  her  admission,  on  account  of 
her  proslavery  constitution. 

When  Missouri  sought  admission,  the  ques- 
tion was  raised  at  once  whether  she  was  to  be  a 
slave  state  or  not.  Congress  was  about  evenly 
divided  on  the  matter,  and  a  bitter  contest  was 
precipitated  that  continued  for  three  years. 

The   controversy  was   settled   at  last  by  the 

87 


88  THE    LOUISIANA    TURCHASE 

passage  of  a  measure  familiarly  known  as  "The 
Missouri  Compromise."  This  measure  forbade 
slavery  "in  all  that  portion  of  the  Louisiana  Pur- 
chase  lying  north  of    latitude   36°  30',  with  the 


CAPITOL   AT    JEFFERSON    CITY,    MISSOURI 

Courtesy  of  Missouri  Pacific  Railway 

exception  of  Missouri"'  The  result  was  not  satis- 
factory to  either  the  proslavery  or  antislavery 
party,  but  it  was  thought  on  all  sides  to  be  the 
best  disposition  of  the  case  that  could  be  secured 
at  the  time. 


MISSOURI  89 

The  way  was  now  clear  for  the  admission  of 
Missouri,  and  on  the  10th  of  August,  182 1,  Presi- 
dent Monroe  proclaimed  her  a  sovereign  state. 

Missouri  is,  in  the  main,  a  prairie  state, 
although  in  some  sections  the  land  is  much 
more  broken  and  hilly  than  is  usual  in  the 
prairie  states.     Its  area  is  69,415  square  miles. 

The  Missouri  River  cuts  the  state  in  twain, 
flowing  in  a  general  direction  from  west  to  east, 
and  uniting  with  the  Mississippi  a  few  miles 
north  of  St.  Louis.  Northern  Missouri  is  a  fine 
agricultural  section,  while  the  southern  part  of 
the  state  is  divided  between  prairie  lands  and 
mining  areas.  In  the  southwest  is  the  range  of 
Ozark  Mountains,  with  an  extreme  altitude 
of  1,600  feet  above  sea  level. 

The  leading  agricultural  products  of  Missouri 
are  wheat,  corn,  oats,  cotton,  tobacco,  and  flax. 
The  soil  is  rich  and  well  watered,  and  large 
crops  are  the  rule.  The  cattle  interests  are 
extensive,  and  horses  and  mules  are  raised  in 
great  numbers.  Missouri  furnished  thousands 
of  mules  to  the  British  Army  for  its  South 
African  campaign. 

The  poultry  interests,  however,  excel  all 
others.  In  a  recent  year  the  shipments  of  live 
and  dressed  poultry  amounted  to  107,000,000 
pounds;  while  the  shipments  of  eggs  reached  a 
total  of  thirty-five  million  dozen,  or  a  half-dozen 
eggs  apiece  for  every  person  in  the  Union. 

The  combined  values  of  corn,  wheat,  oats, 
timothy    and    clover  seed,   cotton    seed,    castor 


90  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

beans,  tobacco,  broom-corn,  hay,  and  straw,  for 
that  year,  did  not  quite  equal  the  value  of  the 
eggs  and  poultry  shipped  from  the  state. 

Missouri  has  extensive  beds  of  bituminous 
coal,  and  the  mines  are  easily  worked.  Iron 
ores  are  abundant.  Iron  Mountain  is  the  largest 
and  purest  mass  of  iron  ore  known  anywhere  in 
the  world.  Zinc  also  is  found  in  large  quantities, 
and  the  zinc  mines  are  now  a  very  valuable  prop- 
erty.* 

In  the  central  and  southern  portions  of  the 
state  there  are  vast  deposits  of  lead.  In  or  near 
Washington  County  there  is  a  series  of  caves 
from  whose  sides  and  roofs  millions  of  pounds 
of  lead  are  depending.t 

In  the  vicinity  of  St.  Louis,  and  especially  at 
Crystal  City,  are  immense  beds  of  sand,  suitable 
for  making  the  best  grades  of  glass.  The  glass 
industry — in  window  glass,  glassware,  and,  above 
all,  plate-glass — is  one  of  the  most  important 
in  the  long  list  of  manufactured  products. 

Missouri  is  a  Mecca  for  the  great  railway 
lines,  and  St.  Louis  is  one  of  the  busiest  railroad 
centers  in  the  country.  Missouri  also  has  the 
additional  advantage  of  a  possible  choice  of 
routes,  as  she  can  use  the  Mississippi  and  the 
Missouri  rivers  as  well  as  the  railroads.  The 
levee  along  the  river  front  at  St.  Louis  is  a  busy 
place. 

In  population  Missouri  ranks  fifth  among  the 

*The  zinc  ore  product  for  iqoi  was  worth  $5,310,000. 
f  The  output  of  lead  for  1901  was  valued  at  $4, 850,000. 


Q2  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

States;  3,106,665  people  are  within  her  borders. 
And  yet  she  has  only  six  cities  above  the  10,000 
mark. 

In  view  of  the  prominence  of  St.  Louis  in  the 
thought  of  America  for  the  next  eighteen 
months,  some  facts  regarding  it  become  spe- 
cially interesting. 

St.  Louis  was  first  settled  by  French  colonists 
under  Liguest  and  Chouteau  in  1764,  and  was 
given  the  name  of  the  French  king.  By  iqco, 
her  population  had  passed  the  half-million  mark. 

She  has  twenty  public  parks,  one  of  which  is 
the  second  largest  park  in  the  world,  with  1,372 
acres.  She  has  the  greatest  steel  and  arch 
bridge  in  the  world,  6,220  feet  long. 

Her  courthouse  cost  $2,200,000,  and  her  water- 
works plant  $30,000,000.  She  has  64  hotels,  and 
524  churches. 

She  has  the  largest  electric  plant,  and  the 
largest  brewery  in  America;  she  has  the  tallest 
shot  tower  in  America,  and  many  of  her  eight 
thousand  factories  are  more  than  a  match  for 
any  of  their  kind  in  the  world. 

In  a  word,  from  a  little  fur-trading  post  in 
Liguest's  day,  she  has  grown  to  be  one  of  the 
leading  commercial  marts  on  this  continent. 

Missouri  has  a  well-ordered  and  progressive 
school  system.  Free  public  schools  for  white 
and  colored  youth  berween  the  ages  of  six  and 
twenty  are  required  by  law  for  every  district  of 
the  state.  The  various  religious  denominations 
support  private  schools  and  colleges. 


MISSOURI  93 

The  State  University  at  Columbia  has  a  plant 
that  cost  more  than  $1,000,000,  and  an  endow- 
ment of  $1,250,000.  It  has  a  library  of  40,000 
bound  volumes.  The  university  is  open  to  both 
sexes.  The  School  of  Mines  and  Metallurgy — a 
department  of  the  university — is  located  at  Rolla. 

In  wealth  and  population  Missouri  is  probably 
in  advance  of  any  state  west  of  the  Mississippi. 
Yet  its  natural  resources,  which  seem  so  vast 
now,  are  but  imperfectly  developed.  Missouri 
is  still  a  land  of  opportunity  for  the  thrifty  and 
enterprising  settler.  What  the  second  century 
of  her  state  existence  may  bring  to  her,  only  an 
unguarded  prophet  would  venture  to  predict. 


XX 


ARKANSAS 


FIFTEEN  years  elapsed,  after  the  admission 
of  Missouri,  before  another  state  was  cre- 
ated out  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase.  This  state 
was  Arkansas,  which  was  admitted  to  the  Union, 
June  15,  1836,  during  the  administration  of  Presi- 
dent Jackson. 

As  her  territory  lay  south  of  360  30' — the 
northern  limit  for  slavery  as  agreed  upon  by  the 
"Missouri  Compromise"; — Arkansas  was  admitted 
as  a  slave  state.  And  she  remained  such  until, 
in  the  fortunes  of  war,  slavery  was  finally  and 
forever  abolished. 

The  area  of  Arkansas  is  53,850  square  miles. 
The  state  is  about  equally  divided  between 
mountain  lands,  hill  lands,  and  rich  bottom  lands. 

The  northwestern  part  of  the  state  is  very 
broken  and  rugged.  The  Ozark  Mountains  there 
reach  a  height  of  2,000  feet.  But  there  is  some- 
thing in  the  soil  of  this  section  that  produces  the 
finest  apples.  Arkansas  apples  were  awarded 
several  gold  medals  at  the  Paris  Exposition  of 
1900. 

The  hill  country  south  of  the  Arkansas  River 
is  finely  adapted  to  peach  culture.  Three  hun- 
dred bushels  of  peaches  to  the  acre  in  that 
region  is  spoken  of  as  "a  fair  yield." 

94 


g6  THE   LOUISIANA   PURCHASE 

The  valleys  among  the  hills  are  wondrously 
rich  in  pasturage— Bermuda  grass,  Japan  clover, 
Kentucky  bluegrass,  and  alfalfa  growing  there 
luxuriantly. 

But  of  the  28,000,000  acres  of  Arkansas  land 
that  may  be  tilled,  the  rich  alluvial  lands  along 
the  streams  are  most  sought  after  by  the  southern 
farmer.  For  here  he  can  best  grow  his  cotton 
and  his  corn,  his  sweet  potatoes  and  his  melons. 

Arkansas  is  rich  in  rivers.  The  Mississippi 
skirts  its  eastern  boundary;  the  Arkansas  flows 
directly  across  the  state,  joining  the  Mississippi 
at  Napoleon;  the  St.  Francis  and  the  White 
rivers  parallel  the  Mississippi  in  the  north;  and 
the  Red  River  goes  out  of  its  way  to  visit  the 
state  in  the  southwest.  Arkansas  has  3,000 
miles  of  navigable  streams. 

The  bottom  lands  along  these  streams  and 
their  tributaries  are  exceedingly  fertile.  Here 
are  the  numerous  cotton  plantations  that  make 
Arkansas  one  of  the  leading  cotton  states  of  the 
South.  What  wheat  is  to  the  Dakotas,  and  corn 
to  Iowa,  so  is  cotton  to  Arkansas.  Over  6,000,000 
acres  are  suitable  for  cotton-raising.  The  nor- 
mal cotton  crop  of  the  state  is  about  800,000 
bales  of  500  pounds  each,  and  the  normal  value 
of  the  crop — including  both  fiber  and  seed— is 
$37,600,000. 

Corn,  oats,  tobacco,  and  sorghum  also  are  at 
home  on  the  bottom  lands.  The  sorghum  syrup 
of  Dixie  is  a  real  institution.  Sweet  potatoes 
yield  about  300  bushels  to  the  acre.     Melons  and 


ARKANSAS  Q7 

cantaloupes  reach  a  profit  of  $75  to  $100  an 
acre. 

Back  among  the  hills  are  vast  timber  stretches 
of  inestimable  value.  Black  walnut,  pine,  and 
oak  abound.  And  in  the  same  regions  are 
mines  of  zinc,  lead,  iron,  and  copper,  only  await- 
ing the  capital  to  develop  them. 

Underlying  5,000,000  acres  are  immense  coal 
beds,  both  bituminous  and  anthracite,  the  latter 
being  only  a  little  softer  than  that  of  Penn- 
sylvania. 

Hot  springs  along  the  banks  of  the  Washita 
attract  a  hundred  thousand  invalids  annually  for 
help  and  healing.  The  springs  issue  from  a 
sandstone  ridge.  There  are  more  than  a  hun- 
dred in  all.  The  city  of  Hot  Springs  is  a  famous 
American  spa. 

Arkansas  has  1,311,561  citizens.  A  large  pro- 
portion of  these  are  negroes.  In  some  sections 
of  the  state  the  colored  race  is  strongly  in  the 
majority. 

Urban  life  is  not  conspicuous  throughout  the 
state.  There  are  only  three  cities  over  the 
10,000  mark.  Rural  life  in  Arkansas  is  at  the 
maximum. 

Little  Rock,  the  capital,  is  on  the  Arkansas 
River,  three  hundred  miles  above  its  mouth. 
Its  early  name  was  "La  Petite  Rochelle,"  which 
was  given  it  by  the  old  French  voyageurs.  They 
had  come  up  the  Arkansas  River  to  this  point, 
seeing  only  low  and  sandy  banks  and  wide  bot- 
tom lands.      Not   a  stone  or  rock  was  in  sight 


Q8  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

jyntil  they  reached  the  site  of  the  present  capital, 
but  there  they  found  a  tongue  of  rock  jutting 
out  from  the  bluff  shore.  .  It  was  such  a  novelty 
that  they  named  it  "La  Petite  Rochelle" — "Little 
Rock."  But  the  French  name  had  to  give  way 
to  the  unromantic  Saxon  translation. 

Though  the  first  settlement  in  the  state  was 
made  by  French  colonists  in  1685,  at  Arkansas 
Point,  fifty  miles  from  the  Mississippi,  yet  very 
few  reminders  of  the  French  regime  remain  in 
the  names  of  localities.  In  this  respect  it  is 
entirely  different  from  Louisiana.  There  is  a 
Bellefonte,  a  Napoleon,  a  Sevier,  a  Chicot,  and 
a  St.  Francis;  and  but  few  beyond  these.  Saxon 
nomenclature  almost  entirely  suf  plan  ted  the 
Norman. 


XXI 


THE    STATE    OF    IOWA 


WHEN  America  acquired  the  Province  of 
Louisiana,  the  Sioux,  Sac,  Fox,  and  Iowa 
Indians  roamed  the  flower-gemmed  prairies  of 
what  is  now  the  State  of  Iowa.  But  it  was  not 
long  before  they  had  to  give  way  to  the  white 
settlers  from  Indiana  and  Illinois,  who,  with  the 
vision  of  the  seer,  saw  in  those  prairies  the  rich 
corn  lands  of  the  future. 

Statehood  came  to  Iowa  as  a  gift  for  the 
Christmas  week  of  1846.  The  exact  date  that 
President  Polk  signed  her  papers  of  admission 
was  December  28,  1846. 

This  typical  prairie  state  has  an  area  of  56,025 
square  miles.  To  one  familiar  with  hills  or 
mountains,  the  level  or  undulating  surface  of 
the  prairie  lands  seems  painfully  monotonous 
From  no  Iowan  home  is  there  seen  on  the  dis- 
tant sky  line  the  deep  blue  of  a  mountain  range. 

In  the  early  days  the  region  was  almost  with- 
out trees,  with  the  exception  of  an  occasional 
clump  along  some  stream.  But  Iowa  has 
ceased  to  be  treeless  as  of  old,  as  her  people 
have  given  much  attention  to  the  planting  of 
forest  trees  and  fruit  orchards,  which  now  add 
grace  and  beauty  to  the  landscape. 

The   prairie  soil   is  a  dark  loam  from  one  to 

99 


IOO 


THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 


two  feet  deep,  and  of  almost  exhaustless  fertility. 
And  it  is  amply,  though  not  abundantly,  watered. 
There  is  no  swamp  or  marsh  land  in  the  state. 
Practically  the  whole  of  Iowa  may  be  tilled. 

The  farm  is  the  unit  of  industry  in  Iowa.  Not 
that  she  is  without  cities,  for,  of  her  population 
of    2,231,853,  one-sixth  is  in  the  cities.     Of   her 


STATE    CAPITOL,    DES    MOINES,    IOWA 

Courtesy  of  Northwestern  Railroad 


fourteen  cities,  six  have  a  population  of  more 
than  10,000  and  less  than  20,000,  four  between 
20,000  and  30,000;  three  between  30,000  and  40,- 
000,  while  Des  Moines,  the  capital,  has  62.000. 
But  Iowa  has   no  great   city,  like  all   her  sister 


THE    STATE    O*   -IOWa  IOI 

states    about    her.     Her   life    is    commandingly 
rural,  agricultural. 

Corn  is  king  in  Iowa.  The  state  flower  is  the 
wild  rose.  But  had  Celia  Thaxter  been  con- 
sulted when  the  choice  was  being  made,  she 
would  have  said  to  Iowa: 

On  thy  fair  shield  set  thou  thy  maize. 
More  glorious  than  a  myriad  flowers! 

In  iqoo  Iowa  ranked  second  among  the  corn- 
growing  states,  Illinois  alone  outranking  her. 
Other  grain  staples  are  wheat  and  oats,  while 
she  also  raises  a  large  crop  of  hay.  She,  too, 
indulges  in  sorghum  and  broomcorn. 

Her  cattle  and  dairy  interests  are  enormous. 
In  1900  she  had  over  4,000,000  cattle,  and  more 
than  1,000,000  milch  cows.  Beside  these,  she 
had  500,000  sheep,  and  over  3,000,000  hogs. 

Iowa  has  few  minerals.  In  the  vicinity  of 
Dubuque  lead  mines  are  extensively  worked, 
about  5,000,000  tons  of  lead  being  smelted 
annually.  Large  beds  of  very  pure  gypsum  are 
found  in  the  region  of  Fort  Dodge.  Bitumi- 
nous coal  fields  underlie  5,000,000  acres  of  her 
surface,  and  about  4,000,000  long  tons  are  mined 
each  year. 

The  transportation  facilities  of  the  state  are 
excellent.  Iowa  is  a  perfect  network  of  rail- 
ways. The  great  trunk  lines  between  Chicago 
and  the  West  traverse  her  territory,  and  with 
their  lateral  lines  reach  every  town  and  hamlet 
within  her  borders.     Iowa  adopted  a  very  liberal 


^ 


THE    STATE    OF    IOWA 


IO3 


policy  toward   the  railroads  in  the  constructive 
period,  and  to-day  she  is  reaping  the  benefits. 

She  is  also  able  to  avail  herself  of  river  trans- 
portation. While  she  has  no  internal  navigable 
waters,  the  Mississippi  skirts  her  borders  on  the 
east,  and  the  Missouri  on  the  west.  And  these 
are  both  navigable.  Boats  run  up  the  Mississippi 
to  St.  Paul,  Minn.,  and  bring  Iowa  the  immense 


IOWA   CATTLE 

Courtesy  of  Northwestern  Railroad 


quantities  of  lumber  which  she  needs.  She  is 
dependent  on  Minnesota  for  her  lumber  sup- 
plies, which  reach  her  largely  by  the  river. 
The  western  tier  of  counties  can  easily  use  the 
Missouri  for  trade  with  St.  Louis  and  points 
farther  south,  as  also  with  the  Northwest. 

The  people  of  Iowa,  industrious,  thrifty,  and 
moral,  are  deeply  attached  to  their  educational 
system,  which  ranks  among  the  best  in  the  land. 


MINNESOTA  107 

Anthony,  his  patron  saint.  Minnesota  was 
known  in  Paris  long  before  it  was  known  in 
New  York  or  Boston. 

The  area  of  the  state  to-day  is  83,365  square 
miles.  The  southern  and  western  sections  are 
opulent  farm  lands,  producing  wheat,  corn  and 
oats  in  great  abundance.  The  northeastern 
section  is  rich  in  forests  of  pine,  and  in  iron 
mines. 

Wheat  is  the  staple  crop.  The  Red  River  of 
the  North  is  the  dividing  line  between  Minnesota 
and  the  Dakotas,  and  the  Red  River  Valley 
produces  the  finest  flouring  wheat  in  America. 
The  seed  of  this  famous  No.  1  Red  wheat  was 
brought  from  southern  Russia  by  Mennonite 
immigrants  about  twenty-five  years  ago.  It  was 
at  first  disparaged  by  the  millers  and  grain 
buyers,  but  by  degrees  it  won  its  way  to  recog- 
nition and  fame. 

In  1900  Minnesota  stood  second  in  wheat  pro- 
'  duction,  the  value  of  her  crop  being  $32,500,000. 

Her  most  important  flour-mills  are  at  Minne- 
apolis, twenty-five  of  them  in  all,  and  the  finest 
in  the  world.  In  1900,  their  combined  output 
was  14,250,000  barrels  of  flour,  ground  from 
65,000,000  bushels  of  wheat.  This  amount  of 
flour  would  make  19,500,000  loaves  of  bread  a 
day,  or  enough  for  the  needs  of  the  six  New 
England  States,  New  York,  Pennsylvania,  and 
Ohio. 

The  climate  is  ideal  for  wheat.  The  winters 
are    cold,  but  the  air  is  dry.     The  heat  of  the 


104 


THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 


At  the  time  Iowa  became  a  state,  1,125,000  acres 
of  land  were  set  aside  for  the  support  of  the 
common  school  fund.  And  liberal  grants  of 
public  money  have  since  been  made  to  keep  up 
the  prestige  of  her  schools.  Besides  the  graded 
and  high  schools,  there  is  the  State  University 
at  Iowa  City,  for  which  generous  provision  is 
made  from  the  public  funds. 

Iowa  is  also  the  land  of  churches.  She  has  no 
less  than  thirty-six  various  denominations  of 
Christians.  Many  of  the  christian  bodies  main- 
tain schools  for  higher  learning,  and  give  them 
excellent  support.  An  interesting  historic  fact 
is  that  coeducation  in  these  schools — so  far  as  it 
is  practiced — came  from  the  advice  of  Horace 
Mann,  when  he  was  visiting  a  college  in  Daven- 
port in  1858.  He  recommended  it,  and  it  became 
the  policy  of  these  schools  henceforward. 


XXII 


MINNESOTA 


MINNESOTA  means  "Sky-tinted  Water.'; 
This  name  was  given  by  the  Indians  to 
the  first  important  tributary  of  the  Mississippi, 
because  of  the  purity  of  its  water,  that  reflected 
the  sky  above  it. 

When  the  question  of  naming  the  region  came 
up,  it  was  proposed  to  call  it  "Itasca,"  after  the 
lake  in  which  the  Mississippi  takes  its  rise.  But 
"Itasca"  was  set  aside  for  "Minnesota." 

The  state  with  this  beautiful  name  was 
admitted  to  the  sisterhood  of  States  on  May  n, 
1858,  during  the  administration  of  Buchanan. 

Only  about  two-thirds  of  what  is  now  Minnesota 
was  included  in  the  Louisiana  Purchase.  But 
perhaps  this  review  had  better  treat  of  the  state 
according  to  its  present  limits,  instead  of  follow- 
ing slavishly  the  landmarks  of  the  past. 

The  earliest  histories  of  the  state  are  found  in 
the  journals  of  the  Jesuit  missionaries,  who  pen- 
etrated its  wilds  to  bring  the  christian  faith  to 
the  savage  and  fierce  Dakotas.  Du  Luth  found 
his  way  there,  and  established  a  trading  post; 
his  name  still  lingers  in  the  busy  city  on  the 
great  northern  lake.  And  Louis  Hennepin,  a 
Benedictine  monk,  visited  the  falls  of  the  Missis- 
sippi in   i68ot  and  gave  them  the  name  of  St. 

105 


108  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

summer  days  is  intense,  but  the  nights  are  cool 
— which  is  perfect  wheat  weather.  The  rainfall 
is  only  twenty-five  inches,  but  it  is  very  evenly 
distributed,  and  is  sufficient. 

Minnesota's  dairy  interests  are  immense.  The 
milk  of  331,000  cows  was  received  at  her  cream- 
eries in  1900,  and  its  value  was  $7,000,000.  The 
output  of  the  creameries  was  75,000,000  pounds 
of  butter,  which  at  15  cents  a  pound  netted  over 
$11,000,000.  Minnesota  has  taken  the  prize  for 
butter  at  the  New  Orleans  Exposition  in  1884,  the 
first  premium  at  the  World's  Fair  in  Chicago,  and 
the  Sweepstakes  prize  at  the  Paris  Exposition. 

The  great  pine  belt  stretches  from  Lake  Supe- 
rior to  the  Red  River  Valley.  The  Duluth  saw- 
mills cut  730,000,000  feet  of  lumber  in  1900,  while 
2,500,000  ties  were  got  out  for  the  railroads. 

The  lake  fleet  visiting  Duluth  for  cargoes  of 
grain,  lumber,  and  iron  ore  is  numbered  by  the 
thousands.  Most  of  the  grain  finds  its  way  to 
Buffalo,  the  lumber  to  the  Great  Lake  cities, 
and  the  iron  ore  to  the  smelting  furnaces  of 
Ohio  and  Pennsylvania. 

The  iron  ores  of  the  Messaba  Range  are  won- 
derfully rich.  They  are  frequently  found  in  a 
pulverized  state,  and  are  loaded  on  the  cars  by 
steam  shovels — an  easy  method  of  mining. 

Minnesota  has  a  population  of  1 ,75 1 ,394,  accord- 
ing to  the  last  census.  She  has  a  large  foreign 
element  in  her  population,  but  it  is  chiefly  made 
up  of  Scandinavians  and  Germans,  who  become 
excellent   citizens,     Some  of  the  best  journals 


MINNESOTA  IO9 

published  in  the  state  are  in  the  Scandinavian 
and  German  tongues. 

There  are  six  cities  in  Minnesota  of  over  10,000 
population.  St.  Paul  and  Minneapolis — "The 
Twin  Cities" — are  the  civic  marvels  of  the 
Northwest,  for  enterprise,  beauty,  and  culture. 

Beside  2,800  miles  of  navigable  waters,  Minne- 
sota has  7,000  lakes,  some  of  which  are  respecta- 
bly large.  Minnesota  need  not  go  out  of  her 
own  borders  for  beautiful  summer  resorts  and 
healthful  recreation. 

The  loyalty  of  the  state  to  the  Union  is  seen 
in  the  fact  that  she  provided  24,000  men  for  the 
Union  Army.  But  war  time  brought  to  her  an 
experience  that  she  can  never  recall  without  a 
shudder.  While  so  many  of  her  able-bodied 
men  were  at  the  South,  the  Sioux  Indains  went 
on  the  war-path,  and  swept  down  on  the  ill- 
defended  settlements.  Seven  hundred  people 
were  murdered,  and  two  hundred  women  car- 
ried into  captivity.  Eighteen  counties  were 
ruthlessly  ravaged,  and  $3,000,000  worth  of 
property  destroyed.  To  this  day,  the  memories 
of  the  New  Ulm,  and  other  massacres,  are  pain- 
fully vivid. 

Minnesota  makes  the  largest  provision  for  the 
education  of  her  people.  Her  school  system  is 
of  the  newest  and  best  type.  She  is  rich  in 
institutions  of  higher  learning,  in  public  libraries, 
in  influential  journals,  in  christian  churches — in 
all  that  makes  for  the  broadest  intelligence  and 
most  virile  citizenship. 


XXIII 


THE    STATE    OF    KANSAS 


IT  WAS  duringthe  distracted  days  immediately 
preceding  the  Civil  War  that  Kansas  gained 
the  prize  of  statehood.  The  administration  of 
President  Buchanan  was  nearing  its  close,  and 
secession  had  been  already  determined  upon  by 
some  of  the  states,  when,  on  January  29,  1861, 
Kansas  was  admitted  to  the  Union.  In   less 

than  three  months,  Sumter  was  under  fire,  and 
the  war  was  on. 

In  1854  Kansas  had  been  made  a  territory, 
and  the  same  year  Congress  abrogated  the 
"Missouri  Compromise,"  thus  leaving  the  exten- 
sion of  slavery  into  the  new  states  again  an 
open  question. 

The  eastern  neighbors  of  Kansas  were  bent 
upon  making  her  a  slave  state,  but  a  considera- 
ble segment  of  her  own  citizens  were  as  deter- 
mined that  her  soil  should  be  free.  The  struggle 
between  these  contending  elements  was  fierce 
and  protracted.  Rival  legislatures  were  in 
session  at  the  same  time,  blood  was  shed  in 
broils,  and  Lawrence  was  sacked  and  burned. 
But  out  of  all  the  trying  experiences  Kansas 
finally  emerged  as  a  free-soil  state. 

Kansas  is  the  hub  state  of  the  Union,  geo- 
graphically.    She.  is  notably  a  prairie  state,  her 


THE    STATE    OF    KANSAS  III 

surface  diversified   by  plains,  gentle    hills,   and 
woodlands.     The  soil  is  highly  productive.     In. 
the  early  days  there  were  vast  ranges  covered 
with   buffalo   grass,   where    immense    herds   of 
bison  found  their  natural  feeding  grounds. 


AT   FORT  LEAVENWORTH,    KANSAS 
Courtesy  of  Missouri  Pacific  Railway 

The  area  of  the  state  is  82,080  square  miles. 
She  is  as  large  as  New  York  state  and  Indiana 
combined,  or  Maine  and  Ohio. 

The  rainfall  is  a  little  short,  but  Kansas  has 
an  abundance  of  streams — the  Arkansas,  Kansas, 


112 


THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 


Republican,  Saline,  Solomon,  Blue,  Medicine  and 
Cimarron  rivers.  Besides  these,  she  has  a  water- 
front of  150  miles  on  the  nagivable  Missouri. 
There  is  also  a  subterranean  waterflow  capable 
of  irrigating  an  area  more  extensive  and  more 


Burlington  Route 


ON   A    SHEEP    RANCH 


fertile  than  the  Valley  of  the  Nile.  This  is 
reached  by  numerous  artesian  wells  which  by  a 
system  of  reservoirs  are  made  to  irrigate  the 
farms. 

The  staple  crops  of  her  fertile  acres  are  corn, 
wheat,  oats,  and  sorghum.      Sugar  beets,   and 


THE    STATE    OF    KANSAS  1 13 

large  crops  of  hay  and  alfalfa  are  produced,  also. 
Corn  is  king  in  Kansas,  as  in  the  other  prairie 
states.  The  largest  crop  of  this  cereal  the  state 
ever  produced  was  225,000,000  bushels  in  1899. 

In  1900  Kansas  forged  her  way  to  the  first 
place  in  the  galaxy  of  wheat-raising  states,  and 
maintained  her  position  in  1901.  In  corn  and 
wheat,  taken  together,  she  produced  in  1900 
$17,000,000  worth  more  than  any  other  state  in 
the  Union. 

Her  livestock  interests  are  enormous.  Her 
horses  count  up  915,000.  Her  cattle  number 
2,600,000,  besides  800,000  milch  cows.  Her  dairy 
products  in  1900  reached  $7,500,000.  She  fur- 
nished for  the  shambles — those  within  her  own 
borders  at  Kansas  City,  and  others  elsewhere — 
1,250,000  cattle,  3,500,000  hogs,  and  775,000  sheep, 
in  1900  alone.  Her  income  from  this  source  was 
$61,000,000. 

No  wonder  that  her  cattle  owners  think  of 
Kansas  as  the  paradise  of  the  herdsman.  And 
they  wish  it  to  be  understood  that  it  is  Kansas 
City  in  Kansas  that  is  the  second  largest  live- 
stock market,  and  meat-packing  center  in  the 
world. 

Special  attention  of  late  years  has  been  given 
to  the  raising  of  alfalfa.  In  1901,  320,000  acres 
were  sown  to  that  marvelously  nutritious  grass, 
that  mocks  at  drought,  and  every  other  foe  but 
hail. 

Kansas  has  magnificent  orchards — apple, 
peach,  plum,  pear,  and  cherry.     She  has  taken 


THE    STATE    OF    KANSAS  115 

the  gold  medal  for  her  fruit  at  a  National  Pomo- 
logical  Exhibit. 

Beneath  her  rich  soil  there  lie  inexhaustible 
beds  of  bituminous  coal.  In  the  vicinity  of 
Galena  and  Empire  City  are  the  richest  lead 
and  zinc  producing  mines  in  the  world.  One- 
quarter  of  the  zinc  of  the  world  is  mined  there. 

A  salt  bed  200  miles  long,  60  miles  wide,  and 
300  feet  thick  underlies  a  portion  of  the  state, 
There  is  also  a  great  stratum  of  dolomite,  which 
is  a  fine  building  stone.  And  her  supply  of 
natural  gas  rivals  that  of  Indiana,  Ohio,  or 
Pennsylvania. 

Nine  thousand  miles  of  railway  network  the 
state,  and  move  her  products.  Only  Illinois  and 
Pennsylvania  have  a  larger  railroad  mileage. 
New  York,  the  Empire  State,  is  considerably 
behind  Kansas. 

When  Kansas  was  made  a  state  she  had  a 
population  of  107,000.  But  she  sent  more  soldiers 
into  the  Union  armies  than  there  were  voters  in 
the  state  when  Sumter  fell,  and  she  exceeded 
all  her  quotas  without  either  draft  or  bounty. 

Her  population  in  1900  was  1,470,495.  The 
bulk  of  her  people  are  on  the  farm,  but  she  has 
several  important  and  growing  cities,  nine  of 
which  have  over  10,000  inhabitants. 

Cities  grow  where  stunted  birches 

Hugged  the  shallow  water  line, 

And  the  deepening  rivers  twine 

Past  the  factory  and  mine, 
Orchard  slopes,  and  schools  and  churches. 


Il6  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Generous  provision  is  made  for  popular  intel- 
ligence and  morality.  Kansas  has  6,000  churches, 
and  40  colleges,  academies,  and  private  schools, 
maintained  by  various   christian  denominations. 

The  public  schools — graded  and  high — number 
9,400.  The  State  University  is  at  Lawrence;  the 
State  Normal  School  at  Emporia;  and  the  State 
Agricultural  College  at  Manhattan. 

Fine  public  libraries  are  found  in  all  the  cen- 
ters, while  830  newspaper  publications  are  con- 
stantly ministering  to  public  intelligence. 

The  settlement  and  development  of  Kansas 
seems  almost  like  a  fairy  tale.  But  twoscore 
years  have  gone  by  since  she  was  admitted  to 
the  fellowship  of  States;  at  times  the  obstacles 
to  her  advancement  seemed  almost  insurmount- 
able; and  yet  in  this  brief  period  she  has  shown 
the  world  what  industry,  thrift,  intelligence,  and 
morality  can  do  in  the  creation  of  a  great  and 
commanding  commonwealth.  And  it  is  not  at 
all  improbable  that  the  achievements  of  the  past 
will  yet  pale  into  insignificance  before  the  com- 
pleted glory  of  the  century  to  come. 


XXIV 


NEBRASKA 


MARCH  i,  1867,  was  the  date  of  Nebraska's 
admission  to  the  Union,  at  which  time 
Andrew  Johnson  was  President.  She  was  the 
thirty-seventh  star  in  the  flag's  field  of  blue. 

Nebraska,  the  northern  neighbor  of  Kansas 
and  western  neighbor  of  Iowa,  possesses  with 
them  the  general  features  of  the  boundless, 
rolling  prairie;  except  that  her  surface  is  some- 
what more  undulating  than  theirs. 

The  eastern  and  central  sections  make  one  of 
the  most  fertile  grain-growing  districts  on  the 
continent.  The  section  west  of  the  one-hun- 
dredth meridian  is  the  chief  grazing  country  of 
the  United  States.  This  is  the  old-time  Buffalo 
Land,  where  the  American  bison  roamed  by 
the  hundred  thousand  thirty  and  more  years 
ago. 

All  sections  of  Nebraska  are  well  watered. 
The  Platte  River  runs  through  the  center  of  the 
state  from  west  to  east  the  entire  distance,  form- 
ing a  valley  of  great  magnitude  and  beauty. 
The  tributaries  of  the  Platte  and  the  Missouri 
water  abundantly  both  the  grain  and  grazing 
portions. 

The  climate  is  delightful,  healthful,  and  stim- 
ulating.     The  winters  are  comparatively  brief, 

117 


n8 


THE    LOUISIANA    TURCHASE 


and  not  so  severe  but  that  the  great  cattle  herds 
may  be  kept  out  on  the  ranches.  The  summers 
are  long  and  warm,  but  there  is  never  a  day  of 
high  temperature  without  its  breeze,  and  hot 
nights    are    dissipated    by   the   wind    from    the 


STATE   CAPITOL   AT   LINCOLN,    NEBRASKA 

Courtesy  of  Burlington  Route 


Rockies  in  Colorado,  bringing  cooling  and  com- 
fort on  its  wings. 

But  the  autumn  weather  in  Nebraska  is  ideal — 
four  months  of  almost  unbroken  Indian  sum- 
mer, hazy,  restful,  bountiful  days,  with  panora- 


NEBRASKA  IIQ 

mas  of  sunrise  and  sunset  such  as  the   prairies 
alone  can  give. 

The  early  settlers  found  everything  at  hand 
for  easy,  rapid,  and  successful  development. 
There  were  no  giant  forests  to  be  leveled,  no 
cold  wet  land  to  be  drained.  "The  wide  rolling 
prairie  was  in  waiting  for  the  settler's  coming, 
with  its  rich  black  alluvial  soil  that  now,  after 
forty  years  of  production,  requires  no  artificial 
stimulation.  In  most  countries  the  word  "soil" 
applies  to  the  surface  only.  But  in  Nebraska, 
owing  to  its  peculiar  geological  formation,  the 
dirt  is  all  soil,  from  the  surface  down  to  the  rock, 
wherever  it  may  lie.  Every  railroad  cutting,  and 
every  digging  of  a  well,  make  this  manifest 
beyond  dispute.  So  the  exhaustion  of  the  soil 
is  not  a  problem  for  the  Nebraskan  farmer. 

The  area  of  the  state  is  77,510  square  miles. 
Of  the  improved  land  about  one-half  the  acreage 
is  given  to  the  raising  of  corn.  For  the  past  ten 
years  Nebraska  has  enjoyed  the  honor  of  being' 
one  of  the  five  foremost  corn-producing  states/ 
The  corn  crop  of  1897  was  a  record  breaker, 
being  over  240,000,000  bushels.  That  year's  yield 
placed  her  in  the  front  rank  for  the  first  time. 
The  wheat  crop  of  1900  was  31,000,000  bushels, 
the  oat  crop  37,000,000,  and  the  potato  crop 
9,000,000.  The  crop  of  flaxseed  was  nearly 
1,000,000  bushels. 

Great  attention  has  been  given  to  the  cultiva- 
tion of  the  sugar  beet,  and  it  has  proved  surpris- 
ingly  successful    and    profitable.      The    autumn 


120  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

months  of  unbroken  sunshine  are  eminently 
favorable  to  the  ripening  of  beets,  and  especially 
to  their  acquirement  of  saccharine  matter,  which 
gives  them  their  value.  Three  of  the  largest  beet- 


WHERE   CORN   IS  KING 

Courtesy  of  Burlington  Route 

sugar  factories  in  the  country  are  located  in  the 
state.  But  this  industry  is  as  yet  only  in  its  infancy. 
Alfalfa  is  extensively  raised,  and  is  as  great  a 
success  here  as  in  neighboring  states.  Kearney 
has  become  wealthy  through  the  crop  of  alfalfa 
from  32,000  acres  in  its  immediate  vicinity.  The 
place  had  failed  as  a  manufacturing  center;  but 


NEBRASKA 


121 


alfalfa  has   made  the  section   one  of  the  richest 
in  the  state. 

When  Nebraska  was  first  settled,  it  was  tree- 
less, except  for  the  timber  that  skirted  the 
streams.      But    myriads    of    forest    trees   were 


SUGAR    BgETS 


planted,  and  now  groves  of  timber  are  abundant. 
Orchards  and  vineyards  are  very  numerous  in 
the  eastern  half  of  the  state. 

Nebraska's  livestock  interests  are  very  large. 


122  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

In  iqoo  she  had  640,000  horses,  and  over  2,000,000 
cattle,  and  sent  over  2,000,000  hogs  to  market. 
Besides  her  own  sheep,  which  numbered  370,000, 
she  pastured  over  600,000  for  the  ranchmen. 
Some  of  her  farmers  have  large  flocks. 

Three  important  railways  cross  the  state,  reach- 
ing all  but  four  of  her  counties.  Nebraska  has 
a  greater  mileage  than  the  four  states  of  Maine, 
New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  and  Massachusetts, 
while  New  York  state  has  only  2,000  more  miles. 

The  population  has  grown  from  28,441  in  i860, 
to  1,066,300  in  1900.  The  state  has  only  three 
cities  of  over  10,000,  Omaha,  Lincoln,  the  capital, 
and  South  Omaha.  Omaha,  on  the  west  bank 
of  the  Missouri,  is  a  beautiful  city  of  magnificent 
distances,  with  miles  of  excellent  pavements, 
buildings  of  modern  architecture,  and  every 
electric  convenience. 

The  public  schools  of  the  state  are  both 
numerous  and  well  supported  by  land  endow- 
ments. It  is  the  pride  of  Nebraska  that  the 
United  States  census  gives  her  the  lowest  per 
cent  of  illiteracy  of  any  state  in  the  Union. 

The  State  University  and  Agricultural  College 
are  located  at  Lincoln.  Besides  a  State  Normal 
School,  there  are  thirty-five  private  and  denomi- 
national universities,  colleges,  and  academies. 

The  people  of  Nebraska  in  every  walk  of  life 
are  evidently  getting  on  in  the  world,  citizens  of 
a  state  enjoying  exceptional  prosperity,  and  with 
prospects  of  advancement  that  but  few  states 
can  offer  in  larger  measure. 


XXV 


COLORADO 


AFTER  a  territorial  experience  of  fifteen 
years,  Colorado  was  admitted  as  a  state 
of  the  Union  on  August  i,  1876,  during  the 
administration  of  President  Grant.  Admitted  in 
the  year  of  the  National  Centennial,  she  is  fre- 
quently called  "The  Centennial  State/' 

She  was  the  eighth  state  to  be  formed  out  of 
the  Louisiana  Purchase,  although  less  than  one- 
half  of  her  territory  was  included  in  that  prov- 
ince. The  Rockies  were  the  western  boundary 
of  Louisiana,  and  only  a  little  more  than  one- 
third  of  Colorado  lies  east  of  that  majestic 
range. 

The  total  area  of  the  state  is  103,925  square 
miles.  The  eastern  section  is  but  a  continuation 
of  the  prairies  of  Kansas  and  Nebraska.  The 
exquisite  panorama  of  prairie  scenery  extends 
from  the  eastern  border  to  the  foothills  of  the 
Rockies.  Formerly  the  region  between  the  Mis- 
souri and  the  mountains  was  spoken  of  as  "The 
Great  American  Desert."  But  it  was  only  await- 
ing the  advent  of  the  settler  to  make  good  its  title 
to  fertility 

Deficient   rainfall    is   a  drawback   to   eastern 

Colorado.     The  land  is  found  to  be  exceedingly 

productive  when  water  is  supplied  by  irrigation, 

123 


COLORADO  125 

and  irrigation  is  made  possible  by  the  presence 
of  several  rivers  and  their  numerous  tributaries. 
The  Arkansas  and  the  two  Plattes  flow  through 
this  section,  on  their  way  from  their  fountains  in 
the  mountains.  More  than  3,000,000  acres  of 
once  arid  land  have  already  been  rendered  fer- 
tile by  irrigating  canals  and  ditches. 

A  considerable  amount  of  grain  is  raised  on 
these  irrigated  lands.  Large  crops  of  the  finest 
potatoes  reward  the  planter.  The  best  canta- 
loupe melons,  the  "Rocky  Fords/'  are  grown  in 
Otero  County.  These  melons  have  for  years 
supplied  the  Chicago  market,  and  now  are  pop- 
ular in  the  markets  of  Philadelphia,  New  York, 
and  Boston.  The  melon  industry  is  very  large, 
and  increasing  year  by  year. 

The  sugar  beet  industry  is  attaining  large  pro- 
portions in  Colorado.  Three  years  ago  the 
present  site  of  Sugar  City,  about  fifty  miles  east 
of  Pueblo,  was  a  barren  waste.  To-day  it  lies 
snugly  in  the  midst  of  rich  meadow  lands,  dotted 
with  hundreds  of  farms  on  which  thousands  of 
tons  of  sugar  beets  are  grown.  It  has  3,000 
inhabitants,  and  has  all  the  advantages  of  a  mod- 
ern manufacturing  town. 

The  farmers  are  encouraged  by  offers  of  a 
liberal  price  to  grow  beets,  and  the  acreage 
devoted  to  this  industry  is  being  increased  each 
year. 

Cattle  and  sheep  are  raised  in  large  numbers. 
The  winters  are  usually  mild  enough  for  the 
herds  and   flocks   to   live   on   the   open   ranch. 


126  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Occasionally  there  are  violent  snowstorms,  when 
many  of  the  beasts  are  lost  from  cold  or  starva- 
tion; but  such  storms  are  sufficiently  rare  to  lead 
the  ranchers  to  take  the  risk. 

The  plains  in  early  spring  are  covered  with 
beautiful  flowers.  There  is  a  species  of  cactus 
with  flowers  as  large  as  a  saucer,  and  the  tall  and 
stately  Yucca,  with  as  many  as  seventy-five  beau- 
tiful white  and  waxy  blossoms.  There  is  also  a 
geranium  whose  little  red  flowers  would  grace 
any  bay-window. 

The  state  flower  is  the  purple  columbine. 

The  climate  of  the  foothills,  and  even  of  the 
mountains,  is  very  bracing  and  healthful.  Many 
persons  with  pulmonary  troubles  can  live  in 
Colorado  with  comfort  and  delight.  There  are, 
also,  famous  mineral  springs  of  great  medicinal 
value. 

Mining  is  the  chief  source  of  the  state's  wealth. 
The  two  largest  mining  camps  are  Leadville  and 
Cripple  Creek.  In  a  single  year  $25,000,000 
worth  of  gold  has  been  taken  out  of  the  state, 
of  which  Cripple  Creek  has  furnished  $10,000,000. 
Besides  the  precious  metals,  the  state  has  large 
areas  of  anthracite  and  bituminous  coal  of  great 
value. 

Colorado  is  well  supplied  with  railroads,  hav- 
ing nearly  4,500  miles  in  all. 

The  major  portion  of  the  state  is  mountainous. 
The  main  chain  of  the  Rockies  traverses  it,  with 
majestic  peaks,  and  great  natural  parks  between 
them.     Pike's  Peak  has  an  altitude  of  14,147  feet 


COLORADO 


127 


above  sea-level.  It  was  discovered  in  1806  by 
Lieut.  Zebulon  M.  Pike,  who  had  been  sent  out 
to  survey  that  portion  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase, 


GARDEN   OF   THE   GODS,    NEAR   COLORADO    SPRINGS 
(PIKE'S    PEAK    IN    THE    DISTANCE) 


and  was  given  his  name.  A  cog  railroad  of  nine 
miles  reaches  the  summit,  the  ascent  occupying 
three  hours. 

The  great  parks — the  Garden  of  the  Gods, 
Estes  Park,  and  San  Luis  Park — are  indescri- 
bably beautiful.  San  Luis  Park  is  18,000  square 
miles  in  extent. 


128  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

The  population  of  Colorado  is  rather  small 
when  compared  with  her  vast  area.  It  is  only 
539,700,  about  one  person  to  every  two  square 
miles.  She  has  five  cities  with  over  10,000  inhab- 
itants. Denver,  the  capital,  and  5,200  feet  above 
the  sea,  is  said  by  many  travelers  to  be  the  hand- 
somest city  in  the  United  States.  It  is  certainly 
safe  to  say  that  it  is  among  the  handsomest.  Its 
public  buildings  are  models  of  modern  architec- 
ture. 

Colorado  is  very  largely  an  Anglo-Saxon  state. 
It  is  true  that  she  has  25,000  Mexicans  within  her 
borders,  chiefly  along  the  Rio  Grande  del  Norte 
and  Colorado  rivers,  and  many  thousand  Scandi- 
navians, but  her  basic  population  is  Anglo- 
Saxon.  Thousands  of  New  England  homes 
have  contributed  to  make  her  what  she  is,  and 
all  she  is;  while  many  other  of  the  older  sections 
have  had  their  share  in  her  remarkable  develop- 
ment. 

Colorado  spends  more  on  her  public  schools 
than  any  other  state,  with  the  exception  of 
Massachusetts. 

Her  possibilities  of  enlargement  are  very 
great.  She  will  always  be  a  Mecca  for  the 
tourist  because  of  her  scenic  grandeur.  She 
will  attract  the  sportsman  because  of  her  big 
game  and  her  countless  fishing  resorts.  The 
capitalist  will  not  overlook  her  rich  mines  when 
seeking  remunerative  investments.  And  when 
the  policy  of  irrigation,  recently  determined 
upon  by  Congress,  shall  be  developed,  her  east- 


COLORADO  I2Q 

ern  plains  will  be  dotted  more  and  more  with 
farmhouses,  and  with  herds  and  flocks  of  incal- 
culable numbers  and  wealth. 

Her  brief  state  life  of  twenty-seven  years  gives 
the  most  hopeful  prophecy  of  what  her  future 
will  be. 


XXVI 


NORTH    DAKOTA 


THE  Louisiana  Purchase  in  its  southernmost 
section  is  only  as  broad  as  a  single  state. 
But  it  gradually  expands  in  breadth  northward, 
until  on  the  Canadian  border  it  embraces  the 
three  states  of  Minnesota,  North  Dakota,  and 
Montana.  On  the  Gulf  it  is  but  350  miles  wide, 
while  at  the  forty-ninth  parallel  it  is  1,200  miles. 

North  Dakota,  the  central  of  the  three  north- 
ern states  formed  out  of  the  Purchase,  was 
admitted  to  the  Union  on  November  2,  1889, 
during  the  presidency  of  Benjamin  Harrison. 

Its  area  is  70,795  square  miles.  By  far  the 
larger  portion  of  the  state  is  rolling  prairie  land. 
Along  the  eastern  border  is  the  Red  River  Val- 
ley, famous  for  its  golden  wheat  lands.  The 
central  and  northwestern  sections  are  fine  gra- 
zing lands,  where,  judging  by  the  remains  dis- 
covered here  and  there,  the  bison  once  roamed 
in  countless  numbers.  The  extreme  southwest- 
ern portion  is  hilly  and  absolutely  sterile,  the 
"Bad  Lands"  or  Mauvaises  Terres  of  the  early 
French  trappers  and  hunters. 

The  state  is  not  lacking  in  rivers  and  streams. 
The  Missouri  cuts  across  it  from  the  central-west 
to  the  central-south,  and  is  navigable  all  the  dis- 
tance.    The  Red  River  of  the  north  is  the  east- 

130 


NORTH    DAKOTA  I3I 

ern  boundary.  The  James  and  the  Souris  are 
also  respectable  streams.  These  four  rivers  with 
their  tributaries,  and  with  numerous  lakes,  fur- 
nish a  good  surface  water  supply. 

North  Dakota  has  a  deficient  rainfall,  but  it 
may  not  be  classified  among  the  arid  lands  of  the 
country  so  much  as  among  the  semi-humid. 
Irrigation  is  a  necessity,  especially  to  the  western 
half  of  the  state,  to  bring  out  its  full  fertility. 
A  beginning  has  been  made  in  storing  the  sur- 
plus waters  of  the  Missouri  in  flood  time,  and 
letting  them  in  on  the  parched  land  when  needed, 
and  the  results  secured  have  been  highly  bene- 
ficial. The  black  loam  readily  responds  to  irri- 
gation. 

The  climate  is  very  healthful,  the  air  dry,  pure, 
and  invigorating.  The  winters  are  cold,  but 
because  of  the  dryness  of  the  air  the  cold  is  not 
so  severe  either  on  man  or  beast  as  in  other 
states,  where  the  temperature  is  much  higher, 
but  the  humidity  much  greater.  Cattle  and 
sheep  are  on  the  open  ranges  in  winter.  The 
"Dakota  blizzard"  is  much  rarer  than  is  com- 
monly supposed. 

There  are  copious  rains  in  the  spring  and 
early  summer,  and  the  plains  are  carpeted  with 
beautiful  flowers.  The  wild  rose  has  been 
selected  as  the  state  flower,  because  of  its  abun- 
dance and  beauty.  It  is  the  second  rains  that  the 
state  needs,  and  that  it  will  doubtless  have.when 
the  plains  have  ceased  to  be  as  treeless  as  at 
present. 


NORTH    DAKOTA  I 33 

North  Dakota  is  an  agricultural  state.  Its 
population  of  319,146  is  to  be  found  chiefly  on  its 
farms.  It  has  no  city  with  10,000  people, 
although  Fargo  is  very  near  that  limit,  with 
9,589.     Bismarck,  on  the  Missouri,  is  the  capital. 

Wheat  is  the  staple  crop  of  the  state.  The  six 
counties  bordering  the  Red  River  raise  the  bulk 
of  the  wheat:  Cass,  7,000,000  bushels;  Grand 
Forks,  Traill,  and  Walsh,  about  4,000,000  each; 
Pembina,  3,500,000;  and  Richland,  3,000,000. 

Here  are  found  the  famous  bonanza  farms, 
which  in  harvest  look  like  a  sea  of  gold.  The 
largest  of  these  was  65,000  acres;  but  it  is  being 
broken  up  into  smaller  holdings.  Fully  22,000,- 
000  bushels  of  oats  were  raised  in  a  recent  year; 
with  25,000,000  bushels  of  flaxseed  and  2,250,000 
bushels  of  potatoes.  Fruit  culture  is  as  yet  only 
in  its  infancy. 

In  1900  the  cattle  numbered  632,000,  besides 
125,000  milch  cows;  horses,  325,000;  and  sheep, 
700,000,  furnishing  3,000,000  pounds  of  wool. 
The  poultry  produced  7,500,000  dozen  eggs. 

The  railways  have  made  North  Dakota.  Three 
great  trunk  lines  traverse  the  state  from  boun- 
dary to  boundary,  and  other  roads  have  import- 
ant branches.  In  all,  there  are  3,031  miles  of 
railway. 

The  Indians  in  the  state  are  gathered  into 
reservations.  They  are  nearly  all  of  the  Sioux 
stock,  and  were  known  formerly  as  Dakotas — 
'"Dakota"  meaning  "allied."  The  Mandans  once 
owned  the  region  of  Dakota,  but  the  powerful 


134  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Sioux  dispossessed  them.  After  the  fearful 
Sioux  massacres  of  1863,  the  Government  settled 
them  in  the  reservations,  and  established  agencies 
among  them.  At  present,  most  of  the  Indians 
wear  citizen's  dress,  but  few  of  them  speak  the 
English  tongue.  An  increasing  number  cultivate 
the  land,  and  raise  cattle;  but  the  majority  still 
receive  Government  rations. 

North  Dakota  prides  herself  on  the  fact  that — 
barring  the  Indians — she  has  the  smallest  per- 
centage of  illiteracy  of  any  of  the  states. 
Well-equipped  libraries  are  established  in  all  her 
urban  communities,  and  1 50  newspapers  are  pub- 
lished in  the  state.  She  has  more  than  3,000 
public  schools.  The  State  University  is  at  Grand 
Forks,  and  the  Agricultural  College  at  Fargo. 
Promising  denominational  colleges  are  located 
at  Fargo,  Jamestown,  and  Wahpeton. 

The  settlement  of  North  Dakota  is  one  of  the 
marvels  of  our  time.  One  of  the  first  efforts  she 
and  South  Dakota — which  in  1861  were  united 
in  the  Territory  of  Dakota — were  called  upon  to 
make  was  the  raising  of  a  company  of  cavalry 
for  the  Union  Army,  and  there  were  scarcely 
enough  white  settlers  to  fill  the  quota.  But 
afterward  the  migration  to  her  fertile  plains  set 
in,  and  to-day  she  stands  among  her  sister  states 
happy  in  the  successes  already  achieved,  and 
with  radiant  hope  for  the  future. 

She  is  busy  with  her  vast  wheat  fields,  with 
her  flax  culture,  with  the  immense  herds  of  cat- 
tle on   her  ranches,  with   her  mines  of   lignite 


NORTH    DAKOTA  1 35 

coal — 20,000  square  miles  in  extent — and  in  build- 
ing her  cities  and  her  institutions  of  learning, 
religion  and  philanthropy.  She  had  but  a  small 
portion  of  the  nineteenth  century  in  which  to  do 
so  great  a  work,  but  the  twentieth  century  will 
find  it  carried  on  to  a  grand  completion. 


XXVII 


SOUTH  DAKOTA 


THE  Dakotas  are  twin  states,  having  been 
admitted  to  the  Union  on  the  same  date — 
November  2,  1889.  The  forty-sixth  parallel  of 
latitude  was  selected  as  the  boundary  line  be- 
tween them.  In  area  South  Dakota  is  somewhat 
larger  than  its  northern  sister,  embracing  77,650 
square  miles. 

The  Missouri  River  as  it  crosses  the  state  from 
north  to  south  near  the  center  divides  it  into  two 
very  different  sections.  The  eastern  half  is  a 
vast  undulating  plain,  only  occasionally  broken 
by  gentle  hills.  But  west  of  the  Missouri  the 
surface  becomes  more  rugged,  with  many 
buttes,  or  abrupt  hills,  in  the  northern  corner, 
and  the  wild  and  elevated  region  of  the  Black 
Hills  in  the  southern  corner. 

The  eastern  section  is  almost  entirely  agricul- 
tural. Considerable  wheat  is  raised,  but  not  so 
much  as  in  the  Red  River  Valley  of  North 
Dakota.  But  the  corn  crop  is  much  more 
abundant  than  there. 

The  state  is  fairly  well  watered,  although  it 
must  be  reckoned  as  in  the  semi-humid  belt. 
Rains  are  copious  in  spring  and  early  summer, 
but  in  the  later  summer  and  autumn  they  are 
rather  scant. 


SOUTH    DAKOTA  137 

Yet  water  is  plentiful  because  of  the  large  pos- 
sible artesian  supply.  Almost  the  entire  state  is 
underlaid  by  the  Dakota  sandstone,  which  is 
more  or  less  saturated  with  water.  Several 
artesian  wells  have  a  flow  of  from  2,000  to  4,500 
gallons  a  minute.  Such  wells  are  used  largely 
for  irrigation,  and  in  some  instances  they  furnish 
water  enough  to  drive  flour-mills. 

Besides  the  Missouri,  which  is  navigable  over 
all  its  course  within  the  state,  there  are  several 
other  large  streams,  as  the  Cheyenne,  the  White, 
and  the  Dakota  River,  and  these  with  their 
tributaries  serve  vast  sections  of  the  prairie  and 
grazing  lands.  The  grasses  on  the  alluvial 
lands  beside  the  streams  are  very  abundant  and 
nutritious. 

The  livestock  industry  is  extensive,  and  con- 
stantly growing.  There  are  1,275,000  cattle  in 
the  state,  besides  270,000  milch  cows;  435,000 
horses;  823,000  hogs;  and  775,000  sheep,  which 
produce  3,250,000  pounds  of  wool.  The  cattle 
sold  for  the  shambles  in  1900  were  worth  $14,- 
000,000. 

The  dairy  interests  produce  10,500,000  pounds 
of  butter  annually,  while  17,500,000  dozen  eggs 
are  shipped  in  the  year. 

The  crop  yield  is  a  significant  commentary 
on  the  fertility  of  the  soil:  Wheat,  42,000,000 
bushels;  corn,  32,000,000;  oats,  19,000,000;  flax- 
seed, 2,500,000;  potatoes,  3,000,000;  and  hay, 
2,250,000  tons. 

There   are   318,000  fruit   trees    in    bearing — 


138 


THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 


apples,  plums,  and  cherries  being  the  chief  fruits 
produced  at  present. 

The  fine  railway  service  in  the  state  makes  the 
larger  markets  easily  accessible. 

The  Black  Hills  form  one  of  the  most  singular 
features  of  the  entire  Louisiana  Purchase.     They 


r'  '•■''■'       •■"■    J&c' 

k-  > 

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■9m     IBPSSBI 

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Wr 

■    ..     ..                 '       .... ......  ~v-J- ..,,„- 

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ON   A   CATTLE  RANCH 
Courtesy  of  Burlington  Route 


have  long  been,  and  still  remain,  a  puzzle  to 
geologists.  Rising  abruptly  from  the  level  sur- 
face of  the  prairie  is  this  series  of  hills  about  120 
miles  long  by  60  miles  wide.  The  highest  peak 
has  an  altitude  of  about  7,400  feet  above  sea- 
level.  The  general  altitude  is  from  3,500  to  6,500 
feet. 


SOUTH    DAKOTA  1 39 

It  is  said  that  ten  of  the  geological  ages  are 
represented  in  the  rock  formation  of  this  won- 
derland; scientists  affirm  that  but  two  of  the 
universal  organic  elements  are  lacking  there,  and 
that  this  condition  does  not  exist  anywhere  else 
in  the  world. 

Almost  every  kind  of  mineral  is  to  be  found 
there — gold,  silver,  copper,  iron,  lead,  nickel,  tin, 
graphite,  mica,  etc.  The  coal  necessary  to  the 
smelting  has,  however,  to  be  brought  from 
Wyoming. 

Tin  ore  has  been  found  that  surpasses  the  ore 
of  the  famous  tin  mines  of  Cornwall.  The  dis- 
covery of  the  tin  deposits  of  the  Black  Hills  has 
practically  placed  the  tin-plate  industry  of 
America  on  an  independent  basis. 

Wolframite  mined  there  is  used  in  making  the 
best  qualities  of  crucible  steel;  and  so  valuable  is 
it  for  this  hardening  process,  that  it  brings  $300 
a  ton. 

Stalagmites  from  the  great  caves  have  been 
sawed  and  polished,  and  are  almost  as  beautiful 
as  Mexican  onyx. 

But  gold  is  the  chief  production  of  these  mines. 
The  first  discovery  of  this  precious  metal  was 
made  in  1874,  but  it  was  not  until  1876  that  the 
mines  began  to  produce.  For  the  twenty-four 
years  between  that  time  and  1900  the  yield  of 
gold  has  been  $110,000,000.  In  1900  the  output 
was  $10,000,000. 

Here  may  be  found  some  of  the  most  curious 
names  in  all  mining  nomenclature:    The  city  of 


140  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Deadwood,  the  Golden  Gate  Mining  Company, 
Kicking  Horse  Shaft,  Deadbroke  Mine,  Calamity 
Gulch  Mine,  Golden  Reward  Mine,  Holy  Terror 
Stamp  Mill,  and  others. 

The  Homestake  Mine  is  the  monarch  of  the 
region.  It  employs  2,200  men  in  all,  pays  $200,- 
000  a  month  in  wages,  and  thus  supports  a  town 
of  8,000  people.  In  twenty-three  years  it  has 
taken  out  $65,000,000  of  gold,  and  has  paid 
$9,000,000  in  dividends  to  its  stockholders.  It 
has  $98,000,000  worth  of  ore  in  sight,  the  ore 
lead  being  450  feet  wide,  and  the  amount  handled 
daily  being  2,800  tons.  Every  mining  compar- 
ison in  the  Black  Hills  is  made  by  this  famous 
mine. 

South  Dakota  has  a  population  of  401,570, 
with  only  one  city,  Sioux  Falls,  of  over  10,000 
inhabitants.  Pierre  is  the  capital.  Her  people 
are  largely  of  American  stock.  In  her  foreign- 
born  population  are  Scandinavians,  Finns,  and 
Russian  Mennonites — strong  elements  in  her 
citizen  body. 

The  provisions  for  education  are  of  the  best. 
Not  only  is  every  district  provided  with  a  school, 
but  the  higher  education  is  generously  sustained 
in  a  State  University  at  Vermilion,  a  State  Nor- 
mal School  at  Spearfish,  and  a  School  of  Mines 
at  Rapid  City.  There  are  also  denominational 
institutions. 

There  are  five  Indian  reservations  in  the  state, 
with  a  total  area  of  15,600  square  miles.  With 
the    exception    of    a    band    of    Algonquins,    all 


SOUTH    DAKOTA  141 

the  Indians  are  of  the  Sioux,  or  Dakota, 
stock.  Many  of  them  have  adopted  citizen's 
dress,  are  working  their  lands,  and  are  large 
cattle  owners. 


XXVIII 


THE    STATE    OF    MONTANA 


THE  names  of  Benjamin  Harrison  as  Presi- 
dent and  James  G.  Blaine  as  Secretary  of 
State,  were  affixed  to  that  important  document 
which,  on  November  8,  1889,  proclaimed  as  com- 
plete the  admission  of  Montana  as  a  state  into 
the  Union. 

Montana  was  the  eleventh  state  to  be  created 
out  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  although,  to  be 
accurate,  only  about  two-thirds  of  the  state  was 
included  in  that  province— the' portion  that  lay 
east  of  the  Rockies. 

But  Montana  must  be  treated  as  Congress 
bounded  it,  prairies  and  mountains  together. 
It  has  the  vast  area  of  146,080  square  miles, 
exceeded  in  size  only  by  Texas  and  California. 

Everything  in  Montana  is  on  a  scale  colossal. 

Its  mountain  peaks  range  from  8,000  to   11,000 

feet  in  height.     From  the  eastern  foothills  of  the 

Rockies  go  forth  the  Jefferson,  the  Gallatin,  and 

the    Madison    rivers,    to   unite    in    forming   the 

mighty    Missouri,  which  in   its  tortuous   course 

will   flow    6,000  miles  before   its  waters   mingle 

with  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.     Its  treeless  plains  are 

vast,  stretching  hundreds  of  miles  in  unvarying 

landscape.     Its  flocks  are  enormous,  for  6,000,000 

sheep  feed  on  its  farms  and  ranches.     Its  mines 

142 


THE    STATE  -0¥~MONTANA  I43 

are  many  and  rich,  producing  the  precious 
metals  in  quantities  that  can  scarcely  be  made 
real  to  the  ordinary  mind. 

About  three-fifths  of  the  state  is  a  continua- 
tion of  the  Great  Central  Plains.  It  is  a  monot- 
onous, undulating  expanse,  rising  gradually 
about  2,000  feet  from  the  Dakota  border  to  the 
foot  of  the  mountains.  Except  along  the  border 
of  the  streams,  the  monotony  is  not  relieved  by 
a  tree.  Vast  stretches  of  coarse  grass  are  every- 
where, except  where  some  sturdy  farmer  has 
built  his  home,  and  turned  his  furrow.  But  the 
farmer  must  be  lonesome,  for  by  the  last  census 
there -were  only  13,000  farms  in  all  the  state. 

The  region  is  classified  by  the  Geological  Sur- 
vey as  among  the  arid  sections  of  the  country. 
The  lofty  mountains  attract  and  largely  retain 
the  rain  clouds  from  the  west,  so  that  the  section 
to  the  east  of  them  has  but  a  meager  rainfall. 
Irrigation  is  an  absolute  necessity  in  many  places, 
but  it  is  also  possible.  The  time  is  not  far  dis- 
tant when  the  surplus  waters  of  the  rivers  in 
spring  will  be  stored,  and  the  abundant  water  of 
the  underflow  will  be  tapped,  to  irrigate  millions 
of  acres  and  make  them  fertile. 

The  climate  of  Montana  is,  for  tlve  most  part, 
salubrious  and  enjoyable.  The  Chinook  winds 
coming  from  the  warm  Japanese  current  in  the 
Pacific  temper  what  would  otherwise  be  a  bleak 
and  chilly  air.  The  winters  are  much  milder 
th^n  in  Minnesota  or  Wisconsin. 

THie  changes    in   temperature  are  sometimes 


< 

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w 

Q 

« 
H 

a 
o 


THE    STATE    OF    MONTANA  1 45 

violent,  and  the  snowstorms  severe;  though  the 
snow  does  not  lie  long  on  the  plains.  These  are 
times  of  peril  to  the  livestock  on  the  ranches,  as 
they  have  no  shelter.  Sometimes  the  herdsmen 
lose  from  30  to  40  per  cent  of  their  cattle  and 
sheep  on  the  exposed  plains. 

The  agricultural  lands  are  divided  into  bottom 
lands,  which  have  a  very  rich  alluvial  soil;  bench 
lands,  which  have  a  sandy  loam  that  is  excellent 
for  farming;  and  high  bluff  lands,  which  are 
suitable  only  for  grazing. 

Compared  with  that  of  other  states,  the  agri- 
culture of  Montana  is  but  in  its  beginnings.  Yet 
she  has  nearly  1,000,000  cattle,  300,000  horses, 
and  6,000,000  sheep,  the  wool  clip  from  which  in 
1899  amounted  to  30,000,000  pounds.  She  also 
raised  5,000,000  bushels  of  oats,  2,000,000  of 
wheat,  1,300,000  of  potatoes,  and  1,000,000  tons 
of  hay.  In  her  orchards  there  are  half  a  million 
apple  trees. 

Coal  lands  are  said  to  underlie  30,000  square 
miles  of  her  surface,  but  coal  mining  is  not  yet 
carried  on  in  an  extensive  way. 

Placer  gold  was  first  discovered  in  1861  in  the 
vicinity  of  Helena,  and  in  1863  the  rich  dis- 
trict of  Alder  Gulch  was  found,  and  at  once 
miners  and  adventurers  from  everywhere  flocked 
to  the  diggings.  Quartz  mining  succeeded  this, 
and  is  pursued  to  the  present.  Simultaneously 
with  the  discovery  of  gold  came  the  finding  of 
silver  and  copper  in  large  quantities,  and  Mon- 
tana speedily  became  a  mining  state.     The  names 


146  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

of  her  mines  have  become  famous  in  every  Stock 
Exchange  in  the  world. 

The  census  of  1900  gives  the  population  of 
Montana  as  243,329,  but  a  trifle  under  a  quarter  of 
a  million.  Three  cities  are  over  the  10,000  mark: 
Helena,  the  capital,  Great  Falls,  and  Butte. 
The  public  buildings  of  the  cities — the  capitol, 
the  schools,  and  the  libraries,  etc. —are  models 
of  modern  architecture. 

One-tenth  of  the  area  of  the  state  is  taken  up 
by  Indian  reservations.  Montana  has  had  its 
troubles  with  the  Redman.  That,  which  thrilled 
the  country  the  most  was  what  has  been  called 
'The  Custer  Massacre"  in  1875.  Five  thousand 
Sioux  Indians,  led  by  Sitting  Bull,  completely 
vanquished  General  Custer  and  his  troopers — 
the  Seventh  U.  S.  Cavalry — in  a  sanguinary  bat- 
tle on  the  Little  Big  Horn.  The  brave  and 
daring  leader  and  261  of  his  officers  and  men 
were  killed  in  the  fight.  A  stately  monument  to 
Custer  marks  the  spot  to-day. 

Many  of  the  Indians  on  all  the  reservations 
are  working  their  farms  and  keeping  large 
droves  of  cattle. 

Perhaps  the  Crow  reservation  is  the  most  pro- 
gressive, as  it  is  by  far  the  largest.  The  Indians 
of  this  agency  have  35,000  ponies  running  wild 
on  the  ranches,  but  they  are  of  very  inferior- 
breed.  The  Crow  Indians  are  good  farmers, 
and  are  taking  to  farming  more  and  more  kindly 
with  every  decade. 

The  Crows  have  one  of  the  finest,  largest,  and 


.     THE    STATE    OF    MONTANA  I47 

most  expensive  irrigation  systems  in  the  United 
States,  the  work  being  done  by  themselves  under 
the  guidance  of  United  States  engineers,  and  the 
expense  borne  by  themselves  out  of  their  annuity 
funds. 

The  Crows  also  own  a  steam-power  flouring 
mill,  and  from  their  own  wheat  crop  produced 
enough  flour  during  the  last  census  year  to  sup- 
ply all  their  own  needs,  besides  selling  450,000 
pounds  to  the  Cheyenne  Indians,  and  the  Gov- 
ernment school  and  agency. 

As  the  communal  system  shall  lessen  its  hold 
upon  them,  and  individual  interest  and  responsi- 
bility come  to  be  felt  more  widely,  the  Indians  of 
Montana  will  make  a  more  rapid  march  to  the 
civilization  which,  already  they  have  come  to 
learn,  will  be  vastly  more  to  their  advantage  in 
every  way. 


XXIX 


WYOMING 


OF  the  twelve  states  whose  territory  was 
included  in  the  Louisiana  Purchase  the 
last  to  be  admitted  to  the  Union  was  Wyoming. 

It  fell  to  the  lot  of  President  Harrison  to  com- 
plete and  proclaim  the  admission  of  six  new 
states,  and  Wyoming  was  the  sixth.  She  was 
admitted  July  10,  1890. 

This  state,  the  youngest  of  twelve  fair  sisters, 
had  a  fine  dowry  at  the  time  of  her  nuptials,  for 
her  domain  embraced  97,890  square  miles.  True, 
much  of  it  was  mountainous,  but  there  were  at 
least  10,000,000  acres  of  fine  timber  on  her  hills, 
which  in  itself  is  a  valuable  asset.  And  from  the 
foot  of  the  mountains  go  forth  large  streams— 
the  Green,  the  Shoshone,  the  Big  Horn,  and 
the  North  Platte — to  make  fertile  her  far-reach- 
ing plains. 

Wyoming  has  at  the  very  least  10,000,000  acres 
of  plain  and  bench  land  suitable  for  farming,  and 
specially  so  if  it  can  be  assisted  by  irrigation. 
For  here,  as  elsewhere  in  the  Central  West,  the 
rainfall  is  not  equal  to  the  land's  demands.  The 
mountains  monopolize  the  rainfall  at  the  expense 
of  the  plains.  But  when  the  irrigation  canals 
and  ditches  shall  have  been  opened,  the  detained 
moisture  of  the  mountains  will  be  made  to  serve 

148 


WYOMING  149 

the  valley  and  the  prairie.  And  experts  have 
said  that  one  acre  of  that  irrigated  western  land 
is  fully  the  equivalent  of  four  acres  in  other 
states  where  the  rainfall  is  copious. 

Few  states  have  a  more  bracing,  healthful,  or 
pleasant  climate  than  Wyoming.  It  has  almost 
constant  sunshine.  So  dry  and  pure  is  the  air 
that  mountain  peaks  may  be  seen  at  a  distance 
of  fifty  to  seventy-five  miles.  The  winters  are 
not  so  severe  but  that  the  cattle  and  sheep  may 
remain  on  the  open  ranch  unsheltered. 

Washington  Irving,  in  his  "Adventures  of  Cap- 
tain Bonneville,"  makes  Arapooish,  a  Crow 
chief,  say  of  the  Wyoming  country:  "The  Crow 
country  is  in  exactly  the  right  place.  It  has 
snowy  mountains  and  sunny  plains,  all  kinds  of 
climates,  and  good  things  in  every  season. 
When  the  summer  heats  scorch  the  prairies  you 
can  draw  up  under  the  mountains,  where  the  air 
is  sweet  and  cool,  the  grass  fresh,  and  the 
bright  streams  come  tumbling  out  of  the  snow- 
banks. .  .  .  There  is  no  country  like  the  Crow 
country.  .  .  .  Everything  good  is  to  be  found 
there." 

The  youthful  state  has  only  6,095  farms  as  yet. 
But  they  are  fine  farms,  in  extent  at  least;  their 
average  size  being  1,300  acres.  Wyoming  has 
85,000  horses,  360,000  cattle,  and  over  5,000,000 
sheep.  She  is  one  of  the  three  foremost  sheep 
states  of  the  Union. 

Valuable  mineral  deposits  are  found  in  the 
mountains — gold,  silver,  copper,  and  lead.     Tin 


I50  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

is  found  in  the  Black  Hills  region  in  the  north- 
eastern portion  of  the  state. 

Her  iron  deposits  are  not  second  to  those  of 
any  other  state.  In  the  vicinity  of  Guernsey 
there  are  as  fine  and  as  extensive  deposits  of 
Bessemer  steel  ores  as  are  to  be  found  anywhere 
in  the  world. 

Coal  fields  extend  over  an  area  of  20,000 
square  miles.  Much  of  the  coal  is  bituminous, 
while  there  are  also  seams  of  lignite  and  semi- 
anthracite. 

The  presence  of  iron  ores  and  coal  in  such 
abundance,  and  the  fact  that  eighteen  petroleum 
oil  fields  are  known,  have  led  many  to  speak  of 
Wyoming  as  "The  Pennsylvania  of  the  West." 

One  of  the  present  drawbacks  to  the  develop- 
ment of  the  state  is  the  lack  of  railways.  An 
important  trunk  line  crosses  the  entire  state,  but 
in  its  extreme  southern  portion.  Another  road 
cuts  across  the  northeastern  corner,  on  its  way 
from  Nebraska  to  Montana. 

But  all  the  central  part  of  the  state  is  without 
a  railway.  Hugedoads  of  wool  drawn  by  sixteen 
horses  or  twenty-four  mules  have  to  traverse 
one  hundred  or  more  miles  to  reach  the  railroad. 
This  is  expensive  work.  But  in  time  the  railway 
branches  will  network  the  interior,  as  in  other 
states. 

Wyoming  is  paying  the  most  careful  attention 
to  her  school  system  She  has  only  92,531 
people  in  all  her  borders,  and  many  of  them  are 
widely  scattered.     Cheyenne,  the  capital,  is  the 


152  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

only  city  of  over  10,000  inhabitants.  To  be  exact, 
the  population  of  Cheyenne  is  14,087. 

But  the  policy  of  the  state,  crystallized  into  a 
statute,  is  to  found  a  school  wherever  there  are 
five  pupils  to  attend  it.  A  State  University  has 
been  established  at  Laramie,  and  a  military  col- 
lege at  Cody  City,  of  which  Colonel  Cody — 
"Buffalo  Bill" — is  president. 

The  Wyoming  people  are  proud  of  the  fact 
that  on  the  outbreak  of  the  Spanish-American 
War,  one  thousand  young  men  enlisted,  and 
among  them  all  there  was  not  one  who  was  with- 
out a  fair  education. 

There  is  but  one  Indian  reservation  in  the 
state,  the  Shoshone,  in  the  west-central  part. 
The  tribes  on  the  reservation  are  the  Snake 
Indians  and  the  Arapahoes,  about  two  thousand 
in  all.  Both  tribes  are  peaceable  and  industrious, 
and  their  progress  toward  civilization  is  steady 
and  perceptible.  They  have  all  adopted  citizen's 
clothing,  and  the  majority  have  abandoned  the 
life  of  the  tepee,  and  erected  comfortable  log 
houses.  They  have  a  large  number  of  ponies  on 
the  open  ranges,  and  an  Indian's  position  is  deter- 
mined by  the  number  of  ponies  he  possesses. 

The  Yellowstone  Park — "the  Northern  Won- 
derland"— will  always  aid  in  making  the  name  of 
Wyoming  widely  known.  It  is  situated  in  the 
northwest  corner  of  the  state,  and  is  sixty-two 
miles  long,  by  fifty-four  miles  wide.  It  was 
reserved  as  a  National  Park,  by  Act  of  Con- 
gress, in  1872. 


WYOMING  153 

The  scenic  beauty  of  this  region  is  not  dupli- 
cated anywhere  on  the  globe.  The  most  elo- 
quent tongue  is  unable  adequately  to  portray  the 
weirdness  and  sublimity  and  beauty  of  this  vast 
playground  of  3,575  square  miles. 

Here  there  are  mountain  ranges  with  peaks 
from  10,000  to  12,000  feet  high.  The  Yellow- 
stone Lake  is  22  miles  long  and  from  12  to  15 
miles  wide — a  great  reservoir  for  the  mountain 
streams.  Out  of  it  flows  the  Yellowstone  River, 
which  has  two  magnificent  cataracts,  one  with 
a  fall  of  140  feet,  and  the  other  330  feet  high. 
The  Grand  Canon  of  the  Yellowstone  is  20 
miles  long,  with  perpendicular  walls  from  200  to 
500  feet  in  height,  and  the  rocks  of  every  con- 
ceivable color.  The  scenic  effect  is  indescribably 
grand. 

Of  the  Grand  Canon  of  the  Yellowstone 
Rudyard  Kipling  writes:  "All  that  I  can  say  is 
that  without  warning  or  preparation  I  looked 
into  a  gulf  1,700  feet  deep,  with  eagles  and  fish- 
hawks  circling  far  below.  And  the  sides  of  that 
gulf  were  one  wild  welter  of  color — crimson, 
emerald,  cobalt,  ochre,  amber,  honey  splashed 
with  port  wine,  snow-white,  vermilion,  lemon  and 
silver-gray  in  wide  washes.  The  sides  did  not 
fall  sheer,  but  were  graven  by  time  and  water 
and  air  into  monstrous  heads  of  kings,  dead 
chiefs — men  and  women  of  the  old  time.  So  far 
below  that  no  sound  of  its  strife  could  reach  us, 
the  Yellowstone  River  ran,  a  finger-wide  strip  of 
jade  green. 


154  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

"The  sunlight  took  those  wondrous  walls  and 
gave  fresh  hues  to  those  that  nature  had  already 
laid  there. 

"Evening  crept  through  the  pines  that  shad- 
owed us,  but  the  full  glory  of  the  day  flamed  in 
that  canon  as  we  went  out  very  cautiously  to  a 
jutting  piece  of  rock — blood-red  or  pink  it  was — 
that  overhung  the  deepest  deeps  of  all. 

"Now  I  know  what  it  is  to  sit  enthroned  amid 
the  clouds  of  sunset  as  the  spirits  sit  in  Blake's 
pictures.  Giddiness  took*  away  all  sensation  of 
touch  or  form,  but  the  sense  of  blinding  color 
remained. 

"When  I  reached  the  main  land  again  I  had 
sworn  that  I  had  been  floating." 


XXX 


INDIAN    TERRITORY 


AS  EARLY  as  1824  President  Monroe  sug- 
gested to  Congress  the  advisability  of 
removing  the  Indians  scattered  among  the  states 
east  of  the  Mississippi,  and  placing  them  in  a 
territory  all  their  own  somewhere  in  the  Louisi- 
ana Purchase. 

He  affirmed  that  there  were  three  dangers  in 
leaving  them  in  their  former  locations:  (1)  the 
danger  of  friction  between  the  general  govern- 
ment and  the  various  state  governments  in 
controlling  them;  (2)  the  danger  of  their  con- 
tamination from  dissolute  characters;  and  (3)  the 
danger  of  broils  between  them  and  the  white 
settlers. 

Congress  thought  well  of  the  President's  sug- 
gestions, and  endeavored  to  realize  them.  A 
part  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  was  secured,  and 
on  June  30,  1834,  the  Indian  Territory  was  duly 
constituted.  The  consent  of  the  Indians  being 
secured,  tribe  after  tribe  was  transferred  to  the 
new  territory,  in  which  the  Indians  were  to 
have  sovereign  rights,  the  control  to  be  vested 
in  the  councils  of  the  various  tribes. 

The  Indian  Territory  at  the  time  of  its  institu- 
tion  was  a  very  large  section,  embracing  the 
territory  of    the   present  and  the  Territory  of 

155 


156  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Oklahoma,  which  was  afterward  set  apart  by 
itself. 

But  it  is  of  the  Indian  Territory  as  it  exists 
to-day  that  mention  must  be  made.  It  is  con- 
siderably less  than  one-half  of  the  original  Indian 
section,  the  area  being  only  31,400  square  miles. 

Its  surface  is  generally  a  succession  of  fertile, 
well-watered,  and  rolling  prairies,  with  consider- 
able timber  areas,  and  rich  bottom  lands  along 
the  rivers  and  streams.  Toward  the  northeast 
the  surface  is  broken  by  the  foothills  of  the 
Ozark  Mountains. 

The  Arkansas  River  cuts  across  the  territory 
on  its  way  from  Kansas  to  Arkansas,  the  north 
and  south  forks  of  the  Canadian  River  flow 
through  the  central  portion,  and  the  Red  River 
forms  its  southern  boundary.  These  rivers  with 
their  many  tributaries  abundantly  water  the 
prairies,  and  their  bottom  lands  are  the  finest 
corn  and  oat  lands  in  the  territory. 

The  last  census  gives  some  interesting  facts 
concerning  agriculture.  There  are  45,505  farms 
in  the  territory,  that  with  the  buildings  are  worth 
$47,000,000. 

The  livestock  is  valued  at  $41,000,000.  The 
cattle  number  1,500,000,  hogs  650,000,  and  horses 
and  mules  on  the  farms  and  ranges  about  275,000. 

The  crops  raised  in  the  census  year  were:  Corn, 
30,000,000  bushels;  wheat,  2,250,000;  oats,  4,500,- 
000;  hay,  500,000  tons,  and  cotton  155,000  bales. 
There  are  more  than  a  million  fruit  trees. 

These  figures  would  naturally  suggest  that  the 


INDIAN    TERRITORY 


157 


Indians  are  good  farmers.  But  the  fact  is  that 
white  farmers  predominate  throughout  the  ter- 
ritory, though  they  are  usually  only  tenants  of 


INDIAN    WOMAN    OF   THE   KIOWA   TRIBE 


the  Indians,  The  Indians  may  legally  lease 
their  lands,  but  the  lands  cannot  be  transferred 
in  fee.    So  the  whit§  farmers,  as  a  rule,  simply 


158  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

lease  the  Indian  holdings,  or  work  them  for  the 
owners  on  shares. 

Up  to  recent  times,  the  land  was  not  held  by- 
individual  Indians,  but  by  the  several  tribes.  At 
present,  the  attempt  is  being  made  to  extinguish 
the  tribal  titles,  and  have  them  transferred  to 
the  individual  Indian  citizens.  This  is  usually 
known  as  taking  up  the  land  in  severalty,  and 
this  desirable  plan  is  now  being  worked  out  by 
the  Dawes  Indian  Commission.  What  is  sought 
is  to  make  a  farmer-citizen  of  the  Indian,  rather 
than  leave  him  subject  to  the  tribal  regulations. 

At  present,  there  are  three  classes  of  land 
owners  in  the  territory. 

1.  Indians,  of  undoubted  Indian  lineage,  and 
who  specially  have  adopted  the  plan  of  the 
Dawes  Commission,  and  have  taken  up  land  in 
severalty. 

2.  Negroes,  who  are  the  descendants  of  slaves 
held  by  the  Indians  of  the  territory  before 
emancipation.  These  were  adopted  into  the 
Indian  tribes,  and  are  thus  Indians  by  adoption, 
and  as  such  are  entitled  to  own  land. 

3.  Whites,  some  of  whom  married  Indian 
women,  and  were  adopted  into  the  tribes;  others 
who  possessed  themselves  of  lands  fraudulently, 
and  have  never  been  dispossessed;  and  still 
others  who  bought  lands  before  the  transfer  of 
land  was  forbidden  by  act  of  Congress. 

The  disquieting  fact  about  the  present  situa- 
tion is  that  the  whites  in  large  numbers  are  in 
the  Indian  Territory,  either  as  owners  or  lessees. 


INDIAN    TERRITORY  I5Q 

And  the  question  will  not  down  as  to  whether 
they  will  not,  in  time,  secure  the  territory  for 
themselves,  as  other  whites  have  secured  Okla- 
homa. 

Two  large  railway  systems  run  directly  across 
the  Indian  Territory  from  north  to  south,  and 
make  the  principal  grain  and  cattle  markets 
easily  accessible  to  her  products. 

The  territory  has  a  population  of  392,060. 
There  are  no  cities,  but  several  populous  towns. 
Many  of  the  Indian  tribes  are  highly  civilized, 
especially  the  Cherokees,  Creeks,  Choctaws, 
Chickasaws,  and  Seminoles.  They  wear  citizen's 
dress,  in  many  instances  speak  the  Saxon  lan- 
guage, and  have  fine  schools — common,  high, 
and  manual  training  schools.  They  have,  also, 
some  strong  and  influential  churches.  Whatever 
problems  the  territory  may  have  for  the  nation 
to  solve,  there  are  elements  of  hopefulness  in 
the  situation  that  are  most  encouraging  to  all 
who  are  interested  in  the  Indian  problem. 


XXXI 


OKLAHOMA 


WHEN  in  1834,  during  the  administration 
of  President  Jackson,  the  Indian  Terri- 
tory was  set  apart  as  the  reservation  of  the  Red- 
man, the  promise  was  made  that  it  should  be  his 
uas  long  as  grass  grows  or  zvater  runs!'  This 
promise  was  a  great  aid  to  the  Government  in 
securing  the  consent  of  the  tribes  to  make  the 
territory  their  home. 

But  in  the  course  of  years  the  longing  eyes  of 
the  whites  began  to  look  toward  the  virgin  lands 
of  the  reservation,  and  steps  were  taken  to 
secure  a  part  of  it,  if  possible,  for  white  settle- 
ment. The  building  of  railway  lines  through 
the  territory  made  the  whites  more  familiar  with 
its  fertility,  and  more  covetous  of  it  as  a  home. 
It  came  to  be  considered,  as  W.  R.  Draper  has 
styled  it,  "a  veritable  paradise  for  white  people." 
Vast  cornfields,  cotton  plantations,  and  cattle 
ranches  were  thought  of  as  among  its  possi- 
bilities. 

We  will  not  enter  into  the  details  by  which  it 
was  accomplished,  nor  discuss  the  merits  or 
demerits  of  the  case;  the  fact  is  that  by  Govern- 
ment action  more  than  one-half  of  the  former 
Indian  Territory  was  purchased  from  the  tribes 

resident  in  it,  and  out  of  this  purchase  the  Ter- 

160 


OKLAHOMA  l6l 

ritory  of  Oklahoma — "the  Beautiful  Land" — was 
duly  formed.  A  territorial  government  was 
established  on  May  2,  1890,  while  Benjamin 
Harrison  was  occupying  the  chief  Chair  of 
State. 

Oklahoma  to-day  has  an  area  of  39,030  square 
miles.  It  consists  of  beautiful  rolling  prairies, 
through  which  course  several  large  streams  with 
numerous  tributaries,  making  it  a  thoroughly 
well-watered  region.  The  rainfall  is  ample,  and 
severe  droughts  are  almost  unknown. 

The  soil  is  very  rich,  the  deep,  black  loam  of 
the  prairie  sections.  In  the  eastern  half  there 
are  considerable  areas  of  timber,  chiefly  differ- 
ent varieties  of  oak,  and  fine  belts  of  forest 
along  the  banks  of  the  streams. 

The  ''boomers,"  as  they  were  called  from  the 
way  in  which  they  settled  Oklahoma,  were 
almost  entirely  of  American  birth.  The  popula- 
tion according  to  the  last  census  was  398,331,  and 
95  per  cent  were  American  born. 

The  settlement  of  the  territory  was  made  in  a 
manner  so  rapid  as  to  astonish  the  nation.  In  a 
single  da}'  town  sites  were  laid  out  that  would  in 
time  accommodate  thousands  of  citizens.  The 
first  day  there  was  printed  the  first  issue  of  a 
daily  paper  that  remains  an  influential  journal  to 
the  present. 

Progressive  business  centers  have  grown  up, 
with  banks,  schools,  churches,  electric  lighting, 
in  fact,  with  all  the  features  of  modern  urban 
civilization.     Among  these  are  Guthrie,  the  cap- 


l62  THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

ital,  Oklahoma  City,  Perry,  Kingfisher,  Still- 
water, and  El  Reno.  Guthrie  has  a  population 
of  10,006,  and  Oklahoma  City,  10,037. 

The  great  railway  systems  facilitated  the  set- 
tlement and  development  of  the  territory,  bring- 
ing Oklahoma  into  close  touch  with  the  Gulf  on 
the  south,  the  Pacific  Coast  on  the  west,  and 
St.  Louis,  Kansas  City,  and  Chicago  on  the  north. 

To-day  Oklahoma  is  in  easy  contact  with  the 
world.  She  ships  castor  beans  to  Europe,  pea- 
nuts to  Paris,  cedar  logs. for  pencils  to  Germany, 
eggs  to  London,  Kaffir  corn  to  Holland,  and 
watermelons  to  the  large  American  cities. 
During  the  Boer  War  she  shipped  large  num- 
bers of  horses  and  mules  to  South  Africa  for  the 
British  Army. 

In  1900  her  fertile  areas  raised  25,000,000 
bushels  of  wheat  and  60,000,000  bushels  of  corn. 
The  same  year  she  produced  12,000,000  bushels 
of  oats,  and  125,000  bales  of  cotton  worth 
$5,000,000. 

She  sent  out  400  carloads  of  melons,  some  90 
pounds  in  weight,  and  half  a  million  bushels  of 
peaches,  besides  great  numbers  of  apples  and 
cherries.  She  has  raised  plums  in  large  quan- 
tities. 

The  territory  is  very  rich  in  livestock.  It 
has  300,000  horses  and  mules,  250,000  hogs,  and 
over  a  million  cattle. 

Churches  are  found  in  every  community,  and 
65,500  of  the  people  are  enrolled  as  members  of 
the  different  church  organizations. 


OKLAHOMA  1 63 

Oklahoma  has  an  enrollment  of  85,000  pupils  in 
her  public  schools.  The  University  of  Oklahoma 
is  located  at  Norman,  the  Agricultural  and 
Mechanical  College  at  Stillwater,  and  normal 
schools  at  Edmond  and  Alva. 

The  Langston  University,  with  agricultural 
and  manual  training  features,  is  for  the  colored 
race.  Schools  for  the  Indians  within  her  borders 
also  are  provided;  foremost  among  these  is  the 
Chilocco  Industrial  School  in  Kay  County. 

Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie  has  given  the  territory  a 
beautiful  public  library  building,  which  is  located 
at  Oklahoma  City. 

As  a  sign  of  the  general  intelligence  of  the 
people,  it  may  be  stated  that  there  are  in  the 
territory  172  publications  in  all — daily,  weekly, 
monthly,  and  quarterly. 

Nothing  more  romantic  in  the  peopling  of  the 
vast  central  prairies  of  the  country  has  ever  been 
seen  than  the  settlement  of  Oklahoma.  It  was 
one  of  the  transformations  that  have  become 
historic.  In  a  single  decade  the  wide  fertile 
stretches  along  the  Cimarron,  Canadian,  and 
Red  rivers,  where  the  Indian  tribes  formerly 
roamed  and  hunted,  became  settled  by  a  thrifty 
and  progressive  people,  rich  in  grain  fields  and 
herds,  rich  in  rural  and  urban  communities,  and 
rich  in  churches  and  schools. 

Such  a  people  are  surely  destined  in  the  near 
future  to  reach  the  fulfillment  of  their  ardent 
hopes,  in  being  admitted  to  the  Union  as  a 
state. 


XXXII 

FIGURES    THAT    REFUSE    TO    BE    OVERLOOKED 

THE  important  place  in  the  Union  occupied 
by  the  twelve  states  and  two  territories 
carved  out  of  the  original  Louisiana  Purchase 
is  made  clear  by  some  statistics  that  cannot,  in 
the  interest  of  completeness,  be  passed  by.  The 
figures  must  be  given,  even  though  the  full 
appreciation  of  their  significance  may  be  an 
effort  to  which  only  the  mind  of  an  expert  is 
equal.  The  figures  are  for  the  last  census  year, 
1900. 

These  twelve  states  and  two  territories  pro- 
duced for  that  year  264,000,000  bushels  of  wheat, 
at  a  value  of  $152,000,000.  This  wheat  produc- 
tion was  more  than  one-half  the  entire  wheat 
crop  of  the  United  States. 

Their  corn  crop  was  still  larger — 1,013,000,000 
bushels,  with  a  value  of  $314,000,000.  This  was 
nearly  one-half  the  crop  of  the  entire  country. 

Of  oats  they  produced  311,000,000  bushels, 
worth  $71,000,000.  Their  yield  of  barley  was 
worth  $10,000,000;  of  rye,  $2,000,000;  of  potatoes, 
$25,000,000;  of  cotton,  $50,000,000;  and  of  hay, 
$130,000,000. 

The  total  value  of  their  agricultural  products 
was  $755,000,000. 

Their  wool  product  amounted  to  over  100,000,- 

000  pounds,  or  35  per  cent  of  the  total  wool  pro- 

164 


FIGURES  THAT  REFUSE  TO  BE    OVERLOOKED       165 

duction  of  the  country.  The  value  of  the  wool 
was  about  $15,000,000.  This  was  equal  to  the 
price  paid  ft  r  the  Purchase. 

The  value  of  the  farm  animals  in  these  states 
in  1900  was  $835,000,000. 

Taking  the  total  value  of  their  various  prod- 
ucts from  the  farm  for  a  single  year,  it  may 
be  safely  estimated  that  it  amounts  to  more  than 
one  hundred  times  the  original  cost  of  the  area. 
In  other  words,  just  one-hundredth  part  of  the 
farm  products  of  each  recurring  year  is  enough 
to  meet  the  cost  to  the  United  States  of  the 
original  Purchase. 

But  the  farm  products  are  not  all.  The  prod- 
uct of  the  mines  also  is  very  great.  The  coal 
mines  of  this  area  yielded  22,000,000  tons;  8,500,- 
000  tons  of  ore  were  taken  from  the  rich  iron 
mines;  the  value  of  the  silver  product  was 
$50,000,000,  and  of  gold  nearly  $38,000,000. 

The  prosperity  shown  by  the  preceding  figures 
is  further  evidenced  by  the  banking  institutions 
of  this  section.  Their  capital  stock  in  1900  was 
over  $80,000,000,  their  loans  and  discounts  were 
$317,000,000,  and  their  total  resources  were 
$1,100,000,000.  The  individual  deposits  in  the 
national  banks  amounted  to  $330,000,000.  This 
would  be  an  average  deposit  of  $22  for  every 
man,  woman,  and  child  in  the  area  of  the  Pur- 
chase. 

The  educational  conditions  show  an  equally 
gratifying  development.  The  pupils  enrolled  in 
the   public  schools  of   these  states   in   question 


l66  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

numbered  3,161,000  in  1900,  with  a  corps  of 
102,000  teachers.  The  expenditure  for  these 
schools  was  $37,000,000. 

The  pupils  in  high  schools  numbered  114,000; 
in  normal  schools,  nearly  16,000;  and  at  the 
higher  educational  institutions,  40,000. 

The  number  of  newspapers  and  periodicals 
published  in  this  area  in  1900  was  5,618.  It  were 
invidious,  perhaps,  to  specify  names,  but  several 
newspapers  of  this  section  are  of  national  impor- 
tance. 

The  number  of  post  offices  is  16,288. 

It  is  equally  true  to  say  that  this  area  has 
made  the  railroads,  and  that  the  railroads  have 
made  it.  Nearly  60,000  miles  of  railway  were 
in  operation  in  this  section  in  1900,  or  31  per 
cent  of  the  total  railway  mileage  of  the  country. 

The  importance  of  this  vast  area — with  its 
15,000,000  people,  its  enormous  agricultural 
and  mineral  resources,  and  its  splendid  institu- 
tions of  learning — it  is  impossible  adequately  to 
interpret.  If  in  one  century  such  achievements 
have  been  made,  what  prophet  dare  predict  that 
which  another  century  may  do  for  it? 

Note. — The  statistics  given  in  Chapters  XVIII  to  XXXII,  inclu- 
sive, are  taken  from  the  following  authorities:  Areas — Frye's, 
and  Redway  and  Hinman's  geographies.  Population — Twelfth 
U.  S.  Census  Reports.  Productions,  figures  relating  to  schools, 
etc. — State  publications. 


XXXIII 

PLANS    FOR   THE    CENTENNIAL    CELEBRATION 

BEGINNING  with  the  Centennial  celebra- 
tion of  1876  in  Philadelphia,  anniversaries 
of  the  leading  events  in  the  history  of  the 
United  States  have  been  duly  observed.  And 
following  them  came  the  observance  on  an 
imposing  scale  of  the  four  hundredth  anniver- 
sary of  the  discovery  of  this  continent  by  Colum- 
bus, in  the  great   Exposition  at  Chicago  in  1893. 

Yet  there  remains  one  other  centennial  of 
national  importance  to  be  appropriatelyobserved, 
that  of  the  acquisition  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase. 

The  public  prints  have  of  late  years  suggested 
that  the  holding  of  expositions  is  being  over- 
done; that  in  some  cases  there  is  no  apparent 
justification  for  such  celebrations;  and  that  the 
American  people  are  losing  interest  in  them. 

But  no  such  suggestion  has  been  made 
regarding  the  Louisiana  Purchase  Exposition. 
An  event  that  added  so  large  and  so  rich  a  sec- 
tion to  the  national  domain — a  section  that 
because  of  its  teeming  products  is  so  vital  to  the 
country's  commerce  and  comfort,  and  that 
already  contains  one-fifth  of  the  population  of 
the  republic — patriots  could  not  and  would  not 
allow  to  pass  without  an  observance  in  some 
measure  commensurate  with  its  importance. 

167 


1 68 


THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 


While  primarily  the  celebration  belongs  to 
the  states  and  territories  included  in  the  area  of 
the  Purchase;  and  while  their  influence  and  par- 
ticipation may  properly  be  predominant  in  it; 
yet  the  entire  country  may  fitly  share  in  it,  as  the 
Purchase  was  a  national  event.  It  was  in  the 
early  days  of  the  American  Republic's  existence. 


ADMINISTRATION    BUILDING    AT   THE    WORLD'S    FAIR,    ST.   LOUIS 


and  in  its  experience  of  poverty,  that  it  concluded 
the  bargain  with  France  which  in  the  course  of 
a  single  century  has  proved  as  profitable  an 
investment  as  the  United  States  has  ever  made. 
The  history  of  the  steps  already  taken  reveals 
the  profound  interest  in  the  proposed  centennial 
celebration  on  the  part  of  the  President  and 
Congress,    As  early  as  January  2, 1899,  a  bill  was 


PLANS    FOR    THE    CENTENNIAL   CELEBRATION        l6Q 

introduced  in  the  House  of  Representatives  by 
Mr.  Joy  of  St.  Louis,  and  in  the  Senate  by 
Senator  Cockrell  of  Missouri,  providing  for 
an  appropriation  by  Congress  of  $5,000,000 
toward  the  proposed  Louisiana  Purchase  Expo- 
sition. 

The  bill  was  favorably  reported,  and  was 
passed  by  the  House  of  Representatives  on  Feb- 
ruary 9,  1901.  On  March  4,  1901,  at  5:15  a.  m. 
— although  it  was  still  March  3d  by  the  Sen- 
ate clock — the  bill  was  passed  by  the  Senate, 
and  was  immediately  signed  by  President 
McKinley. 

Nor  was  this  act  of  the  President,  in  signing  the 
bill,  simply  perfunctory.  His  interest  in  the  pro- 
posed exposition  was  profound  and  generous. 
Delegations  from  St.  Louis  in  1899  had  visited 
Washington  at  his  invitation,  to  consult  with  him 
about  the  celebration,  and  he  pledged  them  his 
heartiest  cooperation.  During  his  tour  of  the 
West  in  the  autumn  of  that  year,  he  made 
repeated  references  to  the  proposed  exposition, 
and  assured  the  people  of  his  deep  personal 
interest  in  its  success. 

The  President  issued  a  proclamation  on 
August  20,  1901,  naming  the  date  of  the  exposi- 
tion, and  cordially  inviting  all  nations  to  partici- 
pate in  it.  As  this  was  the  last  proclamation  he 
made,  a  peculiar  and  pathetic  interest  attaches 
to  it. 

The  following  is  the  important  part  of  the 
proclamation; 


17O  THE    LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

Now,  therefore,  I,  William  McKinley,  President  of 
the  United  States,  ...  do  hereby  declare  and  pro- 
claim that  such  International  Exhibition  will  be  opened 
in  the  City  of  St.  Louis,  in  the  State  of  Missouri,  not 
later  than  the  first  day  of  May,  1903,  and  will  be 
closed  not  later  than  first  day  of  December  thereafter. 
And  in  the  name  of  the  Government  and  of  the  people 
of  the  United  States,  I  do  hereby  invite  all  the  nations 
of  the  earth  to  take  part  in  the  commemoration  of  the 
purchase  of  the  Louisiana  Territory,  an  event  of  great 
interest  to  the  United  States,  and  of  abiding  effect 
upon  their  development,  by  appointing  representatives, 
and  sending  such  exhibits  to  the  Louisiana  Purchase 
Exposition  as  will  most  fitly  and  fully  illustrate  their 
resources,  their  industries,  and  their  progress  in  civili- 
zation. 

September  5,  1901,  President  McKinley  made 
his  last  address  at  the  Pan-American  Exposition 
at  Buffalo,  in  which  he  alluded  eloquently  to  ex- 
positions as  "the  timekeepers  of  progress."  The 
following  day,  Mr.  Francis  of  St.  Louis  wired  a 
message  to  President  McKinley,  thanking  him 
for  his  kindly  allusion  to  expositions,  and  in 
return  received  the  appalling  tidings  that  Mr. 
McKinley  had  been  shot  by  an  assassin. 

But  though  the  exposition  lost  a  most  valued 
friend  by  Mr.  McKinley' s  untimely  death,  it  was 
to  find  another  friend  in  his  successor.  In  his 
message  to  Congress  President  Roosevelt 
bespoke  the  most  cordial  support  for  the  com- 
memoration of  the  Purchase. 

On  December  20,  1901,  ground-breaking  cere- 


PLANS    FOR   THE    CENTENNIAL   CELEBRATION        171 

monies  were  held  on  the  exposition  site.  A  bitter 
wind,  and  a  temperature  of  150  below  zero,  com- 
pelled an  abandonment  of  the  proposed  parade; 
but  the  exercises  in  the  Coliseum,  and  the  ban- 
quet in  the  Southern  Hotel,  were  held  amid 
intense  enthusiasm. 

It  was  afterward  found  to  be  advantageous  to 
postpone  the  opening  of  the  exposition  to  May, 
1904.  Congress  agreed  to  the  postponement, 
and  at  the  same  time  made  an  appropriation  of 
over  a  million  dollars  for  the  United  States  Gov- 
ernment Building  and  exhibits.  It  also  provided 
for  a  special  issue  of  gold  souvenir  dollars  on 
behalf  of  the  Exposition  Company.  These 
measures  received  the  signature  of  President 
Roosevelt  on  June  26,  1902. 


XXXIV 


DEDICATORY    CEREMONIES 


BY  CONGRESSIONAL  provision,  the  dedi- 
cation of  the  exposition  buildings-  and 
grounds  was  to  be  observed  with  appropriate 
ceremonies  on  April  30,  1903 — the  one-hundredth 
anniversary  of  the  signing  of  the  Treaty  in  Paris, 
by  which  the  United  States  acquired  the  Province 
ot  Louisiana. 

When  the  day  arrived,  a  large  and  notable 
company  was  present  in  St.  Louis  for  the  cere- 
monies of  dedication.  President  Roosevelt  and 
the  members  of  his  cabinet  were  there,  Ex-Presi- 
dent Cleveland,  representatives  of  both  houses 
of  Congress,  governors  of  many  states,  mayors 
of  many  cities,  and  the  diplomatic  represent- 
atives of  foreign  governments  at  the  national 
capital. 

Unfortunately ,  the  weather  was  most  capri- 
cious. A  fierce  prairie  wind,  clouds  of  dust,  and 
a  chilling  temperature,  conspired  to  bring  dis- 
comfort to  the  assembled  thousands.  Officials 
and  paraders  and  populace  alike  shivered  at  the 
touch  of  the  icy  wind. 

The    President    reviewed    the    fine    military 

parade,  and  afterward  addressed  the  thousands 

assembled  in  the  building  of  Liberal  Arts.     He 

alluded  in  complimentary  language  to  Spain  and 

172 


DEDICATORY    CEREMONIES  1 73 

France  as  the  early  owners  of  Louisiana,  and  to 
the  foreign  elements  in  its  subsequent  develop- 
ment and  settlement.  The  work  of  soldiers, 
missionaries,  explorers,  and  traders,  was  fittingly 
eulogized. 

In  speaking  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase  as  the 
most  striking  single  achievement  in  the  move- 
ment of  continental  expansion,  the  President 
said: 

It  stands  out  in  marked  relief  even  among  the  feats 
of  a  nation  of  pioneers,  a  nation  whose  people  have 
from  the  beginning  been  picked  out  by  a  process  of 
natural  selection  from  among  the  most  enterprising 
individuals  of  the  nations  of  western  Europe.  The 
acquisition  of  the  territory  is  a  credit  to  the  broad  and 
far-sighted  statesmanship  of  the  great  statesmen  to 
whom  it  was  immediately  due;  and,  above  all,  to  the 
aggressive  and  masterful  character  of  the  hardy  pioneer 
folk  to  whose  restless  energy  these  statesmen  gave 
expression  and  direction,  whom  they  followed  rather 
than  led. 

Ex-President  Cleveland  had  this  to  say: 

The  supreme  importance  of  the  Louisiana  Purchase, 
and  its  value  as  a  national  accomplishment,  when  seen 
in  the  incidents  of  its  short  history  and  in  the  light  of 
its  present  and  prospective  effects,  and  judged  solely 
by  its  palpable  and  independent  merits,  cannot  be  bet- 
ter characterized  than  by  the  adoption  of  the  following 
language  from  the  pen  of  a  brilliant  American  his- 
torian: 

"The  annexation  of  Louisiana  was  an  event  so  por- 
tentous as  to  defy  measurement.     It  gave  a  new  face 


174  THE   LOUISIANA    PURCHASE 

to  politics,  and  ranked  in  historical  importance  next  to 
the  Declaration  of  Independence  and  the  adoption  of 
the  Constitution,  an  event  of  which  it  was  the  logical 
outcome.  But  as  a  matter  of  diplomacy  it  was 
unparalleled,  because  it  cost  almost  nothing." 

Every  feature  of  our  celebration  should  remind  us 
that  we  memorialize  a  peaceful  acquisition  of  territory 
for  truly  American  uses  and  purposes,  and  we  should 
rejoice  not  only  because  this  acquisition  immediately 
gave  peace  and  contentment  to  the  spirited  and  deter- 
mined American  settlers  who  demanded  an  outlet  of 
trade  to  the  sea,  but  also  because  it  provided  homes 
and  means  of  livelihood  for  the  millions  of  new  Ameri- 
cans whose  coming  tread  fell  upon  the  ears  of  the 
expectant  fathers  of  the  republic,  and  whose  stout 
hearts  and  brawny  arms  wrought  the  miracles  which 
our  celebration  should  interpret. 

We  are  here  at  this  hour  to  dedicate  beautiful  and 
stately  edifices  to  the  purpose  of  our  commonwealth. 
But  as  we  do  this,  let  us  remember  that  the  soil 
whereon  we  stand  was  a  century  ago  dedicated  to  the 
genius  of  American  industry  and  thrift.  For  every 
reason,  nothing  could  be  more  appropriate  as  an  impor- 
tant part  of  the  centennial  commemoration  we  have 
undertaken,  than  the  gathering  together  on  this  spot 
of  the  things  that  are  characteristic  of  American  effort, 
and  which  tell  the  story  of  American  achievement;  and 
how  happily  will  this  be  supplemented  and  crowned  by 
the  generous,  magnanimous  and  instructive  contribu- 
tions from  other  and  older  lands,  which,  standing  side 
by  side  with  our  exhibits,  shall  manifest  the  high  and 
friendly  regard  our  republic  has  gained  among  the 
governments  of  the  earth,  and  shall  demonstrate  how 
greatly  advancing  civilization  has  fostered  and  stimu- 
lated the  brotherhood  of  nations. 


DEDICATORY    CEREMONIES  I  75 

May  1st  was  observed  as  "International  Day," 
in  honor  of  the  diplomatic  corps.  The  weather 
was  ideal.  The  addresses  of  the  day  were  by 
M.  Jusserand,  the  French  ambassador,  and 
Don  Emilip  de  Ojeda,  the  Spanish  minister. 
Both  of  these  gentlemen  were  eagerly  heard 
because  they  represented  nations  that  in  the 
remote  past  had  each  been  the  possessor  of  the 
Louisiana  territory. 

Beautiful  weather  greeted  the  last  of  the  three 
days  of  celebration — "State  Day."  The  chief 
feature  was  the  imposing  civil  parade,  in  which 
scores  of  societies — industrial,  educational,  and 
benevolent — participated.  Lindell  Boulevard 
was  lined  with  spectators  for  a  distance  of  three 
miles,  while  on  the  reviewing  stand  was  the 
large  company  of  visiting  governors.  Several  of 
the  state  buildings  were  afterward  appropriately 
dedicated;  and  with  words  of  sincerest  congratu- 
lation the  celebration  came  to  a  close. 


XXXV 

WHAT   A    CENTURY    HAS    WROUGHT 

TO  ONE  who  looks  to-day  upon  the  impo- 
sing commonwealths  formed  wholly  or 
in  part  from  the  Louisiana  Purchase,  comes 
the  constant  surprise  that  so  marvelous  an 
instance  of  settlement  and  development  can 
date  its  genesis  back  to  but  a  hundred  years  ago. 
In  the  trans-Mississippi  region  there  has  been 
one  of  the  greatest  kaleidoscopic  changes  ever 
seen  in  the  history  of  human  migrations. 

But  a  brief  century  since,  Louisiana  was  prac- 
tically unknown.  It  was  a  vast  blank  upon  the 
continental  map.  "All  was  silence  and  solitude, 
like  the  lonely  steppes  of  Turkestan  and  Tar- 
tary.  It  was  inhabited  by  wandering  tribes 
whose  occupation  was  war,  and  whose  pastime 
was  the  chase.  It  was  pastured  for  untold  ages 
by  roaming  herds  of  bison,  that  followed  the 
seasons  in  their  recurring  migrations  from  the 
Arctic  circle  to  the  Gulf." 

But,  to-day,  Louisiana  is  all  known,  from  its 
princeliest  peak  to  its  deepest  dell.  The  sur- 
veyor has  run  his  measuring  tape  over  it  all,  and 
the  map  is  complete.  The  pioneer  has  subju- 
gated the  wilderness,  and  made  it  more  produc- 
tive than  the  basin  of  the  storied  Nile.  It  is  the 
granary  of  the  continent  to-day,  and  its  surplus 
grain  feeds  hungered  Europe. 

176 


WHAT    A    CENTURY    HAS    WROUGHT  177 

To  move  its  products  in  their  season  taxes  the 
banking  facilities  of  the  nation.  Wall  Street 
trades  eagerly  in  the  stocks  of  its  trunk  railway 
lines,  fondly  hopes  for  dividends,  and  gets  them. 
The  miner  has  found  the  hiding  places  of  its 
boundless  treasures,  and  his  output  affects  the 
stock  exchanges  and  the  coinage  of  the  world. 

Civilization  has  supplanted  and  corralled  bar- 
barism. The  schoolhouse  and  the  church  stand 
to-day  where  the  rude  wigwam  once  stood.  And 
great  and  commanding  cities,  on  sites  where 
formerly  stood  the  rude  stockade  and  the  fur- 
trader's  post,  are  to-day  the  industrial,  educa- 
tional, and  religious  nerve  centers  of  mighty 
states  that  represent  all  that  is  worthiest  and 
best  in  our  western  American  life. 

And  as  such  thoughts  pass  swiftly  before  the 
plane  of  vision,  one  readily  calls  to  mind  again 
that  scene  in  a  Parisian  palace  on  a  sunny  April 
day  of  1803,  where  two  men — one  an  American, 
the  other  a  Frenchman — are  cordially  clasping 
hands  over  the  acquisition  of  Louisiana  by 
America,  and  one  is  saying  to  the  other: 

"Sir,  we  have  lived  long,  but  this  is  the  noblest 
work  of  our  whole  lives.  .  .  .  This  will  change 
vast  solitudes  into  flourishing  districts" — a 
prophecy  that  in  the  good  providence  of 
Almighty  God  has  been  most  surely  and  most 
amply  fulfilled. 


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LITTLE    JOURNEYS    TO   EVERY    LAND. 


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11.  GERMANY. 


Other  countries  of  Europe  are  in  course  of  preparation, 
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A  Young'  Man's 

Problems 

CONTENTS 

Z?/ye  Restless  Years— Or,  The  Problem  of  a  Pursuit  in  Life. 

&he  College  Widow—Or,  The  Problem  of  an  Insincere  Friend* 

Having  a  Purpose— Or,  The  Problem  of  Concentrated  Effort 

©6e  Value  of  Health— Or,  The  Problem  of  Vital  Force. 

Through    Doubt    to    Faith— Or,    The  Problem  of  a    Tru* 
Betrayed. 

Conduct  Toward  Woman— Or,  The  Problem  of  Self  Restraint* 

Doing  As  Others  Do— Or,  The  Problem  of  Self  Respect* 

Self  Control— Or,  The  Problem  of  Resisting  Temptation. 

t%e  Value  of  An  Education— Or,  The  Problem  of  Trained 
Powers. 

A  Good  Name— Or,  The  Problem  of  a  Clean  Record. 

Self  Approval  vs.  Money— Or,  The  Problem  of  Fair  Dealing. 

Choosing  His  Life  WorK— Or,  The  Problem  of  One's  Busi- 
ness Bent. 

A  Woman  After  His  Own  Heart— Or,  The  Problem  of  a 
Happy  Marriage. 

Z56e  Supreme  Aim— Or,  The  Problem  of  the  Right  Standard. 

These  are  some  of  the  problems  of  intense  interest  that  the  author  brings  into  talks 
between  two  young-  men.  The  style  is  entertaining  throughout.  There  is  nothing 
dull  or  prosy  anywhere. 

By  Lorenzo  Carson  McLeod.       Cloth.      1 48  pages.      Price,  50  cenX 


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By  W.  E.  ROCHELEAU 

Vol.  I -MINERALS 

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with  Gold,  Coal,  Granite,  Iron, 
Ilarble,  Petroleum,  Natural  Gas 
and  Shale.  Now  extensively  used 
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Chicago. 

Cloth,  5%  x  8  inches,  192  pages,  50  cents.    Boards,  36  cents. 

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Vol.  m.-M  ANUFACTURES 

The  subject  matter  in  this  volume  has  been  obtained  from  direct 
observation  and  consultation  of  the  most  recent  standard  authorities. 
In  the  selection  of  topics,  care  has  been  taken  to  choose  those  which 
are  of  general  interest  on  account  of  their  relation  to  our  everyday 
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and  homes.  The  work  is  intensely  interesting  and  makes  valuable 
reading  for  Grammar  Grades. 

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.•    FOR  THOSE  WHO  WISH  TO  SPEAK  CORRECTLY    ; 

Wincheirs 

Orthography,  Orthoepy  and 

Punctuation* 


HE  latest  and  most  complete  work  on  these  subjects. 
Each  topic  treated  in  a  most  interesting  manner.  .  .  . 
As  an  aid  and  guide  to  teachers  who  wish  to  use  the 
book  with  classes,  frequent  exercises  have  been 
introduced.  Prof.  Winchell  is  a  scholar  of  deep 
thought  and  his  work  embodies  the  best  on  the 
subjects  treated. 


These  are  as  follows: 


Diacritical  Marks 
Vowel  Sounds 
The  Consonants 
Rules  for  Dividing  Words  into 
Syllables 
Accent 


List  of  Words  often  Mispronounced 

Rules  for  Spelling 

Synonyms  and  Homonyms 

Etymology 

Punctuation,  Abbreviations,  etc. 

Common  Words  frequently  Misspelled 


There  are  3Q  Pages  of  common    words   most    commonly   mis- 

'  spelled  by  pupils  in  grammar  and   upper 

schools  as  well  as  by  people  in  common  life.    This  list  was  made  up 

by  several  leading  city  principals  and  is  a  very  valuable  addition  to 

the  work.    The  words  are  alphabetically  arranged. 

SOME   OPINIONS 

"I  think  that  everyone  who  aspires  to  a  correct  use  of  the  English  Language 
will  want  a  copy.  It  is  replete  with  helpful,  concise  statements  of  general  principles 
and  concrete  illustrations." 

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now  given."  *■ 

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FOR= 


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UTLINES  AND  QUESTIONS  on  the 
%o  PRINCIPLES  of  ECONOMICS  o# 

By  LAWRENCE  DEGRAFF,  PH.  £.,  L.L.M. 
: :  Highland  Park  College,  Des  Moines,  Iowa  : : 


Every  person  who  thinks  at  all  must  give  thought 
to    POLITICAL    ECONOMY  in    some  form. 

*w#    «    c    I*******  j.       "In  a  complete  and  practical  education 

Prof.  3.  %  Patton,  wrote:  of  Ameri  Jn  Youth>  \  is  fitting  that  the 

study  of  Political  Economy  should  hold  an  honored  place,  inasmuch  as 
this  branch  of  knowledge,  so  suggestive  in  its  main  principles,  is 
valuable  to  both  sexes  in  the  active  duties  of  life.  ~ 


Our  American  Youth  and  every  person  who  wishes  to  be  considered 
well  informed  should  study  our  social  and  industrial  conditions.  Eco- 
nomic conditions  are  constantly  changing,  and  consequently  Economic 
Science  is  and  must  be  one  of  slow  but  continuous  growth. 


|an  of  tfte  Wort 


The  author  believes  that   any 
outline  that   serves   to   suggest 
definition     and     material,     and 
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He  takes  up  Economics  in  general,  Wealth  by  Pro- 
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O1OKM0VERB5 

for 

GRWMAR 

and 

60NPOSmONWORK 

by 
OJSTAVE5GH0LZ 

AFUM4GAN60MPAHV 

CHICAGO 

Grammar 
Through 
Proverbs 

SOME 

DISTINCTIVE 

FEATURES 

Aims  »nd  Objects  ££■£ 

ing  of  Grammar  more  productive 
of  practical  and  abiding  results  by  helping  pupils  to  a  clear 
understanding  of  the  Structure  of  Sentences,  and  to  a  discrimi- 
native knowledge  of  the  Parts  of  Speech.    The  sentence  is  the 
foundation  of  discourse,  and  the  part  of  speech  can  be  deter- 
mined only  by  its  function  in  the  sentence. 

C««k«i>s»+  1WT -»++/?*♦           The  verY  Dest  attainable,  attractive 
DUDjeCI  IViauer  ♦  ♦     and    instructive— Choice    Proverbs, 
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At»t*^t-icr^m^n+  Strictly  progressive  in  evolutional 
.ttXrangcmeiH  ♦  ♦  ♦  ♦  order,  according  to  the  building-up 
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sion. Every  new  step  involves  a  review  of  preceding  lessons  ; 
M  Variety  in  Sameness  "  and  "  Step  by  Step."  The  numbering 
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Comprises  the  grammatical  attainments 
|p9rt    2          tnat  may  reasonably  be  expected  in  our 

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The  practical  usefulness  of  "  Grammar  Through  Proverbs  n 
will  immediately  suggest  itself  to  every  experienced  teacher, 

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